Village Vanguard - Recordings

Recordings

The Vanguard has helped launched many careers and has hosted many recordings that are regarded as masterpieces in its basement, making it now a club of international renown. On 3 November 1957, during some of the first recording sessions at the club, Sonny Rollins, a tenor sax player, recorded three LPs. These recordings were at the forefront of the hard-bop movement. The LPs documented two different saxophone-bass-drums trios. Rollins had shown an interest in smaller ensembles as early as 1955; in Paradox, he exchanged four-measure phrases with drummer Max Roach, with no other instrument taking part. In the Vanguard recordings we hear similar styles in arrangements. In the song Old Devil Moon, Rollins is accompanied only by a bassist and a drummer. Musically, this song set the standard for the piano-less trio. Following Rollins, recordings continued; there was John Coltrane's and Bill Evans's famed Vanguard titles, both from '61. Coltrane’s album was five titles taken from twenty-two recorded songs over four nights at the Vanguard. There was Art Pepper's "Thursday Night at the Village Vanguard" in '77, Tommy Flanagan's "Nights at the Vanguard" in '86 and Wynton Marsalis's voluminous seven-disc "Live at the Vanguard" in '99. "The words 'Live at the Village Vanguard' do have a direct and positive influence on an album's sales," claims Bruce Lundvall, head of Blue Note Records, a principal jazz label with over a dozen "Live at the Vanguard" titles in its catalog.