Sometime ago I ran the (fairly) famous jazz clip “Jammin’ the Blues,” featuring Lester Young, and went so far as to include a poem I’d written about Lester, called “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” in reference to a tune that Charlie Mingus had written to commemorate Lester’s death. Here are two recent versions of GPH, one a solo by bassist Dave Holland and one a performance by the Jazz Roots Quintet, featuring Andreas Thermos, sax, Antonis Andreou, trombone, Marios Tumbas, piano, Pericles Trivolis, bass, Seraphim Bellos, drums. The Quintet operates out of Athens, which, as you may know, is in “Hellas.”
