Review

Cannonball Adderley Know What I Mean? (Riverside 1962)

- Francois Leave a comment

Yes, we dig.

Personnel

Cannonball Adderley (alto saxophone), Bill Evans (piano), Percy Heath (bass), Connie Kay (drums)

Recorded

on January 27 & February 21 & March 13, 1961 at Bell Sound Studios, NYC

Released

as RLP 433 in 1961

Track listing

Side A: Waltz For Debby / Goodbye / Who Cares? / Venice / Side B: Toy / Elsa / Nancy (With The Laughing Face / Know What I Mean?

Naturally, if he’d play like a woodchopper on Xanax, if you’d hear his valves rattle constantly like creaking doors, if he’d honk all the time like a juke joint maniac, the image of Cannonball Adderley as a terribly hip cat would be hard to uphold. But as it was, the alto saxophonist was hip in vital areas, there just seemed to be something about him that made perfect sense, that was telling it like it is: The buoyant, fiery playing style, at once rootsy and modern. His joie de vivre, ravenous embrace of life. (and literally, a healthy appetite) His charm and the way he handled himself, his eloquence – the assets of one of jazz’s finest ambassadors.

Cannonball’s articulate introductions or conversations would regularly be injected with his catch phrase “Know what I mean?” A proper album title, according to Riverside label owner Orrin Keepnews, who got on really well with Cannonball and not only released many excellent recordings by either Cannonball or the Cannonball Adderley Quintet but also gave him a free hand as officious A&R guy – and loved to pair class acts from his Riverside roster like Cannonball and Evans. At that time, free from the constraints of a lousy contract with EmArcy, with his partaking in Miles Davis’s Kind Of Blue, his own Somethin’ Else on Blue Note and soul jazz hit records Work Song and This Here on Riverside under his belt, Cannonball was in a very good place.

Cannonball had been acquainted with Bill Evans for a while. Besides Kind Of Blue in 1959, the alto saxophonist had worked with Bill Evans earlier in 1958 on Portrait Of Cannonball. An excellent record featuring an early, tentative version of Evans’s beautiful Nardis, hard-swinging (Philly Joe Jones in da house), it is somewhat the opposite of Know What I Mean?, which swings merrily, an aural reflection of a bottle of Prosecco, can’t you hear it pop and sizzle, know what I mean…

Portrait is the introduction of Bill Evans into the saucy realm of Cannonball, Know is Bill Evans pulling the sleeve of Cannonball, let’s go this way perhaps, my friend, it’s the land of milk and honey… Either way, intriguing and beautiful. Know also features bassist Percy Heath and drummer Connie Kay, the beat apex of the Modern Jazz Quartet, which gives you an idea of the direction this foursome was taking… Flexible and solid Percy, unassuming, alert Connie, who plays like a ballerina. It is true, it doesn’t swing like mad but it’s solid as a rock.

Highlights include the bouncy take of the Evans classic Waltz For Debby, featuring a lovely lively story by Cannonball, perfectly developed from courteous remarks to flirting and, one imagines, hot kisses. I love the playful melody of Clifford Jordan’s Toy, which clearly inspires the energetic Cannonball. Elsa is vintage Evans, a typically elegant, perfect synthesis of emotion and ratio. With Evans at the bench, Cannonball’s set of standards and originals is light as a feather, swings fluently, and you can see a delightful smile creeping upwards from Cannonball’s lips to his forehead like a sunrise.

Smiling broadly is all one can do when listening to this fruitful collaboration of jazz maestros.

Listen to Know What I Mean? on YouTube below:

Hal Singer Blue Stompin’ (Prestige 1959)

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The buzz of Hal Singer’s tenor saxophone blew the cornbread of the table.

Personnel

Hal Singer (tenor saxophone), Charlie Shavers (trumpet), Ray Bryant (piano), Wendell Marshall (bass), Osie Johnson (drums)

Recorded

in February 1959 at Rudy van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as PRLP 7153 in 1959

Track listing

Side A: Blue Stompin’ / Windy / Adoration / With A Song In My Heart / Side B: Midnight / Fancy Pants / The Blast Off

In the mid and late 1940’s, the saxophone was the leading actor, class representative, star quarterback. Torpedo of a black submarine. It was at the forefront of black rock and roll in the chitlin’ circuit of black clubs, the source of white rock and roll and popular music. Its biggest star, Louis Jordan, alternated vocals with alto saxophone. But it was the tenor saxophone that was omnipresent. The tenor was a tough guy, the tenor honked and screamed and hollered. The guitar, at that time, merely played a supporting role. Mr. Nice Guy. Necktie. Cleanly cut coiffure. Nothing like the mean motherfucker he would turn out to be in the 1950’s.

Jimmy Forrest’s The Night Train and Jack McVea’s Open The Door, Richard were big hits, blared out of the speakers of the jukeboxes in the hoods of Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Newark, Indianapolis, Detroit, Macon, Tallahassee, competing with singer Wynonie Harris’s Good Rockin’ Tonight and organist Bill Doggett’s Honky Tonk.

In 1948, Hal Singer’s Cornbread, a simple riff made of concrete and steel, reached the top of the ‘race music’ charts. From then on, the saxophonist was billed as Hal “Cornbread” Singer.

Another hit eluded him, regardless of follow-up Beef Stew. A bit wiry and overcooked perhaps. At any rate, Singer was more than just a honker. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1919, Singer made a name for himself in New York in the bands of Jay McShann and Hot Lips Page. For many years, Singer worked as a session musician for the influential rhythm and blues-label King Records. He played with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge in the mid-1950’s. He toured with Earl Hines in France in 1965.

La Douce France. Gay Paree. Looked swell to Hal. Singer settled in Chatou near Paris. The good life. The French loved American jazz artists. The real deal. Air of mystique. Feeling is mutual, is what Mr. Singer most likely confessed, once the Pouilly de Fumé kicked in. At any rate, Singer saw what was good in France (he was there long after the French-Algerian War) and what was (going) wrong in his homeland (and Vietnam) and released Paris Soul Food featuring Manu Dibango in 1969. Cult item. Love letter to the City of Light. Multi-cultural homage to Otis, Stones, Beatles, Booker T. and, last but not least, Malcolm X.

He appeared on T-Bone Walker’s Feeling The Blues in the same year, recorded in Singer’s newfoundcity, a big asset to the legendary guitarist’s fabulous late career effort.

He did this and that, and then some. Made the relaxed and groove-infected Blues And News on Futura in 1971, featuring Singer’s all-original blues and ballad repertory (and, again, an updated Malcolm X) with fine European colleagues and drummer Art Taylor. Largely out of sight of the major jazz media. He was checked out by David Murray, avant-roots figurehead without peer. The result, 2010’s The Challenge, is a good’n.

Read again. A quirky, eclectic journey, right?

Hal Singer made it to 2020. Died at the venerable age of 100!

Prestige Records released Blue Stompin’ in 1959. In hindsight, it’s inevitable to conclude that Singer acted as a kind of warm-up to Arnett Cobb, who released Smooth Sailing just seven days after Blue Stompin’ and churned out Party Time, featuring Singer’s line-up, in May. Both albums by Cobb were very successful.

Only a couple of months after the Cobb and Singer releases, Prestige’s Bob Weinstock invented the Swingville subsidiary, a safe haven for swing giants as Coleman Hawkins, Joe Newman, Buddy Tate, Jimmy Hamilton and Buck Clayton. In that haven, really, is where Cobb and Singer belonged.

Fancy Pants, the sensation-maker of Singer’s sole leadership effort on Prestige, reminds of Arnett Cobb/Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis’ Go Power. Full-blast up-tempo Kansas City swing, 12-bar blues, repetitive, relentless riff. Brings down the house.

The title track Blue Stompin’ is aptly titled. A contagious stomped five-note figure by Ray Bryant leads to the swaggering juke joint melody by Singer. Charlie Shavers takes center stage, abundant like Satchmo. Full, vibrating, high notes as relentless as train whistles. Well-deserved credit on the front sleeve. The role of Shavers is equal to Singer’s part.

Ballad (With A Song In My Heart), slow blues (Midnight), New Orleans vibe (Windy) complete the romp. All good. Can’t go wrong with Bryant, bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Osie Johnson. Down-home stuff with a modern touch.

Pretty hard to beat Cobb, but Singer turned in a greasy, solid record. He was a top-rate swing cat who played his small but dedicated part in the evolution of soul jazz.

Listen to Blue Stompin’ on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0OyT0ZzxcY&list=PLvxWibFr0wiJVo33cwsDYllJ2JIl4r_2w

Hal Singer
Hal Singer - Paris Soul Food
Hal Singer - Blues And News

Paul Bryant Burnin’ (Pacific Jazz 1960)

- Francois Leave a comment

Come on baby, light my fire.

Personnel

Paul Bryant (organ), Jim Hall (guitar), Jimmy Bond (bass), Jimmy Miller (drums)

Recorded

in 1960 in Los Angeles

Released

as PJ-12 in 1960

Track listing

Side A: Still Searching / Love Nest / Blues At The Summit / Side B: They Can’t Take That Away From Me / Searchin’ / The Masquerade Is Over / Burnin’

Sunny Los Angeles may not be the place where you’d expect the presence of a roaring Hammond B3 organ. At the time of this recording in 1960, organ jazz was by and large an Eastern and Mid-Western phenomenon. Mink coats drifted into after-hours clubs, punch drunk. BBQ ribs stood on corners of corner bars, gossiping on a chilly night. Autumn leaves fell on hard times. The sound of the organ was a warm embrace. The sound of the sermon. The sound of screeching brakes of a battered Dodge. The sound of sizzling bacon.

Patrons loved organ combos, which usually, following the example of pioneers Wild Bill Davis and Jimmy Smith, made do with bass pedals and thus without an upright bass player. One less musician on the payroll. Most organists were from the East and Mid-West. Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Trudy Pitts, Shirley Scott, Big John Patton, Gene Ludwig, Brother Jack McDuff and Lonnie Smith.

Paul Bryant hailed from Ashbury Park, New Jersey, but is known as a West Coast cat. That’s because Bryant lived there from an early age. The liner notes to this record and others offer no way of explanation as to when and why he ended up in California, but elsewhere, on the world wide web, it is said that he came to California with his mother at a young age. The notes give us concise but valuable information about a rather obscure musician. In the words of Johnny Magnus:

“For more than 20 years of his 27 years, organist Paul Bryant has been in show business. He appeared, while still very young, in the famous Our Gang Comedy series, and has since worked in numerous motion pictures and television productions. Paul studied piano for 16 years before deciding on music as a career. During his senior year at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles, Paul joined the dance band that included alto saxophonist Frank Morgan, trumpeter Art Farmer, drummer Ed Thighpen and reedman Buddy Collette. When the Korean War broke out, Bryant enlisted in the Air Force, where for the next five years he played piano in a 16-piece dance band as part of a Special Services unit. During this time he expanded his musical knowledge by studying writing and arranging. After being discharged from the service in 1956, Paul worked in the Los Angeles area as a pianist until 1958 when he decided to study organ and was promptly hired by tenorman Claude McClinn.”

Bryant formed an organ combo at about the same time as the most notable organ migrant to the West Coast scene, Richard “Groove” Holmes. Richard Bock from Pacific Jazz coupled Bryant with tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy, a combination that garnered plenty attention and left a legacy of two albums: The Blues Message (1960) and Meetin’ Here (1961).

Bryant also played on Johnny Griffin’s album on Riverside, Grab This. (I’ve been thinking, this might’ve been through his connection with the recently deceased drummer Doug Sides, a Los Angeles native)

Curtis Amy & Paul Bryant - The Blues Message
Johnny Griffin - Grab This!
Paul Bryant - Something's Happening

Unlike Richard “Groove” Holmes, though Bryant played around the country now and then, he didn’t break through nor recorded prolifically. He passed away in Los Angeles in 2010, leaving us, luckily, with a bunch of grooving goodies. He’s got a deep groove and plays firmly in the pocket. An attention grabber not only by sermonizing eloquently, he plays the odd be bop phrase as well as employs nice harmonic sequences, no doubt as a result of his proficiency as a piano player.

All this is in evidence on Burnin’, which offers gritty blues (Still Searchin’, Blues At The Summit, Burnin’), gospel (Churchin’) and standards (Love Nest, The Masquerade Is Over and They Can’t Take That Away From Me). The solid rhythm section of Jimmy Bond and Jimmy Miller is complemented with (making this The Three Jimmy’s) guitarist Jim Hall, as subtle and eloquent as they come. A very interesting addition indeed!

A year later, some black musicians, critics and fans criticized Sonny Rollins for enlisting ‘whitey’ Hall for his all-black outfit on his famous comeback album The Bridge after a three-year hiatus. Here, in 1960, he’s the only Caucasian cat in a band of Afro-American colleagues. Went totally unnoticed.

But that’s another story. The story of Bryant the underboss on the B3 is well-worth pursuing.

Listen to Burnin’ on YouTube below:

Duke Pearson Sweet Honey Bee (Blue Note 1967)

- Francois 1 Comment

Hard bop was in a rut but Pearson was on a roll.

Personnel

Duke Pearson (piano), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), James Spaulding (flute, alto saxophone), Ron Carter (bass), Mickey Roker (drums)

Recorded

on December 7, 1966 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BST 84252 in 1967

Track listing

Side A: Sweet Honey Bee / Sudel / After The Rain / Gaslight / Side B: Big Bertha / Empathy / Ready, Rudy?

Stable, good-natured, down to earth, hip, shrewd. These are some of the characteristics of Duke Pearson’s personality. Honestly, I have no way of knowing but still I’m sure of it. To be the A&R guy of Blue Note in the 1960’s – the role that Duke Pearson played as follow-up to Ike Quebec from 1963 to 1970 – geniality and quick-wittedness is indispensable.

Besides, these traits also apply to his piano and songwriting skills. Somewhat under the radar, not unusual in an era of stellar pianists, Pearson plowed the field of hard bop modernists as Horace Silver and Sonny Clark. Pearson had his own thing going on. Bright solos clear as spring water. A man full of gaiety and the blues.

And a songwriter, damn. He wrote Jeannine. It was recorded excellently by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. But the essential version is on At The Half Note Café Vol. 2 by Donald Byrd, featuring Pearson on piano.

Pearson wrote Idle Moments for Grant Green’s career-defining session in 1963. And was pianist of service.

Cristo Redentor, The Phantom, Sudel, Wahoo, Chili Peppers, New Girl. Many Pearson songs, great blends of sassiness and ingenuity, not unlike Horace Silver’s compositions, have made a lasting impression. Small wonder that people like to play his tunes. Striking contemporary tributes are The Other Duke by bassist Dave Post’s Swingadelic big band from 2011 and Is That So? by Dutch baritone saxophonist Rik van den Bergh from 2021.

Pearson was a Blue Note recording artist but recorded intermittently for Prestige and Atlantic. He recorded for Blue Note until it was sold to Liberty and co-founder Francis Wolff passed away in 1971. Pearson suffered from multiple sclerosis and died at the premature age of 47 in 1980.

His most adventurous album Wahoo from 1965 is a perennial favorite. Pearson followed it up with two soulful albums on Atlantic, Honeybuns and Prairie Dog. His return to the Blue Note catalogue, Sweet Honey Bee, recorded at the tail end of 1966 and released early 1967, is a sizzling synthesis of groove and lyricism.

By 1967, Blue Note hard bop had become a dinosaur in a world of upheaval that spawned The Black Panthers and the sorrowful cry of Albert Ayler. Yet, Pearson kept the flame burning, seemingly intent on getting the job done. Putting a smile on our face. If records like Sweet Honey Bee don’t make you at least temporarily gay, it seems it’s about time that you order the nails of your coffin. If somebody makes a record like Sweet Honey Bee today, it’ll get a four-star review as a great neo-hard bop album.

Sweet Honey Bee was written for Pearson’s wife. She couldn’t have asked for more. It’s lavender in full blue bloom. It’s a Saint Tropez breeze. It’s killer no filler… But it wasn’t a hit record. There is no reason why, three years after Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder, it shouldn’t have been a hit, what with James Spaulding’s sweet-toned flute melody. No luck. Desperately attempting to reach the top of the charts again after mega-hit The Sidewinder by Lee Morgan, Blue Note opened albums of Morgan, Hank Mobley, Duke Pearson, Andrew Hill, with funky tunes to no avail. Chart success is a mysterious phenomenon.

What is success but a matter of perspective? With all due respect, I’ve heard Taylor Swift singing acoustic guitar songs no better than your average village talent show contestant. In hindsight, successful or not, Pearson recorded his gems for posterity. Like Sudel, a happy marriage of a Carribean theme and Hancock/Tyner-inspired layout. Or After The Rain, an achingly beautiful, melancholic ballad. And Gaslight, somewhat Pearson’s Killer Joe, a lightly swinging walk in nocturnal shadows and a glimpse of neon light, not a care in the world though and not a hustler in sight. Serene, dark night.

Freddie Hubbard and Joe Henderson feel like fish in the water, adapt to Pearson’s bouncy and mellow tunefulness with easygoing but lightly charged solos. Ron Carter and Mickey Roker in the house. Amen.

Listen to Sweet Honey Bee on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ycbx8TctM&list=PLw9ozJMqRxLbE768Z2sPzgcSjhDcmAC-k

Duke Pearson - Wahoo
Swingadelic - Tribute To Duke
Rik van den Bergh - Is That So?

Wild Bill Davis Midnight To Dawn (RCA 1967)

- Francois Leave a comment

Wild Bill, already seated behind the Hammond organ for approximately 25 years by 1967, is in top form.

Personnel

Wild Bill Davis (organ), Clayton Robert Brown (tenor saxophone), Dickie Thompson (guitar), Bobby Durham (drums)

Recorded

in 1967 at Grace’s Little Belmont, Atlantic City

Released

as RCA-3799 in 1967

Track listing

Side A: Let It Be / Soft Winds / Adoration / Little Tracy / Up Top / Side B: Manha De Carnaval / Cute / Summertime / Jive Samba / Straight No Chaser / Closing Theme: April In Paris

We’re writing 1967. William Stretchen Davis, a.k.a. Wild Bill Davis, born in Glasgow, Missouri, has come a long way. To the top, no less. Playing guitar at the start, he traveled to Chicago in the late 1930’s and was associated with Milt Larkin and Earl Hines. Two endeavors place him in the front ranks of music history. Davis was the pianist and arranger of the Louis Jordan band from 1945 to 1949. Singer and alto saxophonist Louis Jordan was the enormously popular pioneer of r&b and rock&roll. As such, Wild Bill played a big part in that development. Furthermore, Davis arranged April In Paris for Count Basie in 1955, a tremendous hit record.

Make that three. Settling on the East Coast in the early 1950’s, Davis focused exclusively on the organ. Coming out of the swing era, Davis approached the organ as a big ensemble. He used wide dynamic ranges, continually changing sound registrations and broad and layered harmonies which were directly derived from the five-part Kansas City saxophone sections. Ultimately, his trademark features as long suspended notes and the heavy vibration of the Leslie speaker would be picked up by the modernists, led by front-runner Jimmy Smith. Davis played the bass pedals with his left foot, which obviated the need for the service of the upright bass player. All this amounted to the invention of the organ trio format: organ, guitar and drums. It was subject to variation, duo, (added) saxophone, but the crux was a non-solo, bass-less, interactive group.

His classic group consisted of guitarist Floyd Smith (preceded shortly by Bill Jennings) and drummer Christopher Colombus, also a Louis Jordan-alumnus. Davis recorded singles on Okeh in the early 1950’s and his first long-playing records on Epic in the mid-fifties. The best-known is At Birdland, a live album at the famed ‘jazz corner of the world’ in New York City and a summary of the Davis aesthetic up to that point. A popular performer and recording artist, Davis would record on Imperial, Everest and Verve in the 1960’s.

A number of those were live albums. Besides At Birdland, there’s Live At Count Basie’s and Wild Bill And Johnny Hodges In Atlantic City on RCA from 1966, Wild Bill And Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Live! Volume 1 & 2 on Black & Blue from 1976 and Wild Bill Davis Super Trio: That’s All featuring Plas Johnson on Jazz Connaisseur from 1990.

Finally, there’s Midnight To Dawn from 1967, also released on RCA. Marketing-wise, releasing three live albums in a period of less than two years is unusual, unfruitful one would think, but we’re better for it. At this time, in contrast with At Birdland, which was a one-way street of mid-and up-tempo swing tunes, Davis, although somewhat a dinosaur among the young lions of organ jazz by then, had progressed into a varied performer. A performer that usually stretched out and played long arrangements, but for the sake of the LP format resorted to concise tunes. Wouldn’t mind listening to one of those trademark long gigs. Perhaps a task for the jazz detectives of the contemporary flood of archival releases.

Midnight To Dawn’s got a lot going for it. Davis kicks off with Let It Be, a stately and funky gospel tune written by Davis and tenor saxophonist Clayton Robert Brown, a sermon that has the congregation stompin’ and screamin’ down the aisle. And, at the dawn’s surly light, he ends with Monk’s Straight No Chaser, a rousing climax underpinned by Davis’s subtle accompaniment and effective lines on the bass pedals.

In between, Davis, usually building up his dynamic swing stories, occasionally igniting sassy single lines, Brown, growling like Ben Webster on tenor sax, flexibly switching to flute, Dicky Thompson, mixing greasy licks and octaves on guitar, Bobby Durham, solid on drums, together alternate good grooves like Soft Winds with a lovely ballad, Davis/Brown’s Adoration, not to mention Wynton Kelly’s lively calypso Little Tracy.

Cannonball Adderley’s Jive Samba is a gas. Davis, a fan of the Adderley’s, had recorded the Bobby Timmons-written Adderley hit This Here on Dis Heah (This Here) earlier in 1961, a good record.

Midnight To Dawn is very good and exciting, a prime example of where Wild Bill was at.

Listen to Midnight To Dawn on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6JR24F8AQ0&list=OLAK5uy_nTzqOfwQh6laR0XLdt-55EFQo8BmXjYVM&index=2

Wild BIll Davis - Marciac
Wild Bill Davis - At Birdland
Wild Bill Davis - Dis Heah

The Eric Ineke JazzXpress Swing Street: Plays The Music Of Cannonball Adderley (Timeless 2024)

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Sharpshooters of The Eric Ineke JazzXpress are having a cannonball. 

Personnel

Nico Schepers (trumpet), Sjoerd Dijkhuizen (tenor saxophone), Tineke Postma (alto saxophone), Rob van Bavel (piano), Marius Beets (bass), Eric Ineke (drums)

Recorded

on June 26, 2024 at Studio De Smederij, Zeist

Released

as Timeless SJP495  in 2024

Track listing

Azule Serape / P. Book / Domination / Dizzy’s Business / Planet Earth / Jessica’s Birthday / Gemini / Work Song / The Chant / Unit 7

52nd Street in New York, Central Avenue in Los Angeles, 12th Street in Kansas City, Basin Street in New Orleans. Iconic jazz hubs in the history of jazz, long gone, figuratively speaking, due to various circumstances. The living, essential jazz streets in The Hague keep fighting for survival and keep the flame burning and Eric Ineke, veteran spider in the web of the young lion scene and, at the age of 77, internationally operating drum legend, is the epitome of Swing Street. Always swinging and enthusiastically living by the rules of his motto: hard bop lives!

Eric says: “The singer and photographer Jurjen Donkers was taking pictures of me in a little street behind (jazz-minded, FM)  Society De Witte in The Hague. When I saw the results, the title seemed appropriate and a good choice. Ultimately, swing is my thing.”

The latest recording of his quintet – a sextet here with the inclusion of alto saxophonist Tineke Postma, (she was also featured on What Kinda Bird Is This?) – is dedicated to Cannonball Adderley’s repertoire. It predominantly consists of compositions from the early/mid-1960’s, an interesting and fruitful period in Cannonball’s career, stimulated by excellent songwriting bandmates as Victor Feldman, Yusef Lateef, Sam Jones and colleagues Jimmy Heath and Quincy Jones.

Tantalizing stuff. Like for instance Lateef’s Trane-inspired P. Bouk, a showcase for the tenor saxophone of Sjoerd Dijkhuizen, a strong Northern wind. As ever, Dijkhuizen fluently and lively finds a spot between Mobley and Gordon, a must-hear cat, heir to great forerunners as Ferdinand Povel. Or Lateef’s Planet Earth, a green safe haven for Tineke Postma, who moves like a dragonfly, free and easy, and pianist Rob van Bavel, who is a slender and swifter version of Tarzan swinging from vine to vine, a phenomenal acrobat. On the album as a whole this European master pianist’s strong and richly layered left hand voicing is an important asset.

Feldman’s Azule Serape is an explosion of joyful sounds, propelled by the pulsating rhythm of maestro Ineke. The band succeeds to revive Nat Adderley’s chain gang classic Work Song (the odd tune from early Cannonball), set in motion by an intriguing Van Bavel intro, a seemingly unrelated groove that further down the road segues into the tune with proclamatory horn riffs. The band puts plenty fluent swing into Jessica’s Birthday by the late Quincy Jones, not least Belgian trumpeter Nico Schepers, nice ‘n’ dirty and with a full bright tone.

Cannonball Adderley’s Domination is a gem of merely 3 minutes, an outstanding ensemble piece and arrangement that features unison bass/alto and a bass solo by Marius Beets, who on this record, as is his custom, succeeds at being ‘The Dutch Ray Brown”, simultaneously bossy and supportive. All strong arrangements on Swing Street are by Beets, Van Bavel and Dijkhuizen.

Swing Street is farm-fresh hard bop and exciting from start to finish, really. For approximately eighteen years, The Eric Ineke JazzXpress has set the bar high for American like-minded hard-swinging outfits as One For All and Heavy Hitters. And there seems to be no end to its fervor.

Listen to Swing Street here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Eric+Ineke+Swing+Street

Better still, buy here: https://www.platomania.nl/search/results/?q=ERIC%20INEKE%20JAZZXPRESS%20FEAT.%20TINEKE

Photos: Eric Ineke JazzXPress (Jurjen Donkers); Tineke Postma; Cannonball Adderley.

The Eric Ineke JazzXpress
Tineke Postma
Cannonball Adderley

Norman Simmons Trio Norman Simmons Trio (Argo 1956)

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Prime accompanist goes solo.

Personnel

Norman Simmons (piano), Victor Sproles (bass), Vernel Fornier (drums)

Recorded

in 1956 in Chicago

Released

as Argo 607 in 1956

Track listing

Side A: Capacity In Blues/Stella By Starlight/Jan/My Funny Valentine/Peppe

Side B: Chili Bowl/Moonlight In Vermont/You Do Something To Me/Love Is Eternal/They Can’t Take That Away From Me/Tranquility

This gets you through the night. Good bounce, sassy Carribean touches and original arrangements. Gift from a man who isn’t a household name. Simmons worked mostly in the background, letting others flower and flourish, whether it was singers as Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Helen Humes, Anita O’Day and Joe Williams or hard boppers like fellow Chicagoan Johnny Griffin.

In the early stage of his career, Simmons worked at the Beehive in Chicago as house pianist, backing Prez and Bird, no less. There’s no better education than the bandstand. Truism all too forgotten these days. Simmons honed his chops and perfected the feel of his trio, which most of the time consisted of bassist Victor Sproles and New Orleans-born and bred drummer Vernel Fournier, best-known through his association with pianist Ahmad Jamal.

So when it was time to hit the studio, they were ready for a mixture of standards and originals, perceived in their own refreshing image. One has to hear for itself how attuned to each other’s ears a good piano trio can (should) be and one can do without a weathered track-by-track analysis. Worth to point out, however, are their original takes on Stella By Starlight and My Funny Valentine, both rhythmically inventive and suspenseful. Not to mention the uplifting rhumba vibe of Simmons’s Jan and the nuanced interplay of Chili Bowl, which is usually credited to Duke Ellington.

Simmons is anti-flash, a pianist that cares about the value of balance and thoughtful phrasing, perhaps the result of his various enterprises in accompaniment. He plays like a respected baker kneading dough and carrying on all the right steps to the end product, experienced means to a tasteful end.

Simmons recorded two handfuls of records during his lifetime, which took him two years shy of a half century. (Two of those feature tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander in the 00’s, who’s always been keen on working with unsung heroes) His debut Trio wasn’t followed up until the release of 1976’s Ramira The Dancer. Much better title, quite intriguing, no doubt inspired by a lady whose steps equaled the versatile beat-ness of Simmons.

Norman Simmons passed away at the venerable age of 92 in 2021.

Listen to Norman Simmons Trio on YouTube  here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDPcfTZJIqY

Norman Simmons
Norman Simmons - Ramira The Dancer
Johnny Griffin - The Big Soul-Band