Where Is the Love for Jutta Hipp?

Downshifting toward summer hiatus

News flash: This is not shaping up to be one of those lazy quiet Augusts.

Given the relentless torrent of news and the evidence, right outside the door, of a rapidly heating planet, maybe this is the moment to impose some arbitrary laziness on things — to step away from the grinding wheel, seek perspective, devour the season’s fruit while it’s ripe.

Or, to continue paraphrasing the self-care “advice” from the LifeHack Industrial Complex: Enjoy things on the tactile sensory level rather than the transcription/analysis level….

Here’s a start: The placid touch and economical voicings of German jazz pianist Jutta Hipp. “These Foolish Things” is from Hipp’s last recorded effort, a 1956 date featuring tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims. It was omitted from Blue Note #1530 With Zoot Sims when it was released the following year, and came to light in 2008 on a CD reissue.

Hipp’s life is fascinating — this 2017 piece tells how she built a career as a pianist in New York during the 1950s, then walked away from music and supported herself by working in a clothing factory. Her records were obsessed-over by Japanese and European collectors (in part simply because they were obscure); now even the reissues are hard to find.

Would Hipp’s trajectory have been different if this luminous take on “These Foolish Things” ever got a fair hearing? Impossible to say. But the performance is a vibe throughout. Sims flies in wide circles around the melody, responding to the rhapsodic theme by stretching it nearly beyond recognition. He’s listening carefully to Hipp’s chordal accompaniment. Her tone in the middle registers is crisp and capricious, her touch slippery. She changes direction frequently and fitfully throughout her solo, but when supporting Sims with crystalline two and three note chords, she’s fully grounded, confident about each rhythmic placement.

I love the way she makes the piano sound here. That is all.