Review

Big John Patton Let ‘Em Roll (Blue Note 1966)

- Francois Leave a comment

Blue Note’s most consistent organist since Jimmy Smith pairs with guitar and vibe greats.  

Personnel

Big John Patton (organ), Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone), Grant Green (guitar), Otis Finch (drums)

Recorded

on December 11, 1965 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BST 84239 in 1965

Track listing

Side A:  Let ‘Em Roll / Lacona / The Shadow Of Your Smile / Side B: The Turnaround / Jakey / One Step Ahead

Lif is a string of coincidences. You’re eating your breakfast after a night into town, some pipes of beer and then some, it’s eggs and sausage, it’s rough on the stomach and you let rip on the toilet. You’re in there for ten minutes off and on and you hurry to the train to get to work. On your way you drive your bike into another bike and a human being and you fall into a ditch full of magnolias. You think, wow this is heavenly. This is the day you decided to become a gardener.

Happenstance steered the career of Greg Lewis, a pianist that was sent by mentor Gil Goggins to sub in a New York club, where the only keys belonged to a Hammond organ. Lewis was thrown into the abyss. He grew fascinated with the organ, learned the ropes and became Organ Monk, playing compositions by Thelonious Monk on a Hammond C3 organ.

A similar thing happened to Big John Patton. The Kansas City-born Patton was a pianist that lived in Washington D.C. and was part of the band of r&b star Lloyd Price from 1955-60, writing some of Price’s hits, notably Where Were You On Our Wedding Day. Price and his gang played The Flamingo in D.C. but there was no piano, just the organ. A friend showed Patton some of the basics. Patton was drawn to the organ and liked the music of Jimmy Smith.

Patton moved around a bit, staying in New Jersey and Pittsburgh, both bonafide organ towns. He was picked up by tenor saxophonist and Blue Note A&R man Ike Quebec, who paired him with alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson. He was on Papa Lou’s first popular organ combo record The Natural Soul and contributed Funky Mama.

Donaldson’s Signifyin’ on Argo from 1963 was a winner. Patton also played on superb records as Harold Vick’s Steppin’ Out (Blue Note, 1963), George Braith’s Laughing Soul (Prestige, 1966) and Grassella Oliphant’s The Grass Is Greener (Atlantic, 1967). Did he play on Grant Green’s Iron City (Cobblestone, 1967/72) or was it Larry Young? A strong debate that has been going on for ages and will probably never be resolved. Right?

Patton re-appeared on avant-gardist John Zorn’s The Big Gundown and Spillane in 1986/87. Way to go, man!

If anything, his string of albums on Blue Note in the 1960’s is remarkably consistent, both in the way Patton keeps a fiery groove going in the r&b, hard bop and funk bag and in the way his sound is orchestrated by maestro Rudy van Gelder. It sounds as if everything was no sweat, Big John sitting down at the console, pushing some knobs, pulling some drawbars, yup this is it, you ready Rudy, okay let’s go… Afternoon session, along came John. Not so, of course. RVG had developed an innovative Hammond engineering process from the start with Jimmy Smith.

Superficial but unmistakable aside: they say Hank Mobley looked great on a record cover, no mistaking, but Big John Patton’s a strong contender.

Up until Let ‘Em Roll, Patton had recorded with Grant Green (talk about someone who looked good on a record cover) and Ben Dixon, forming one of the most excellent soul jazz trios around. Now, Lion & The Wolff added vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson to the equation, who was making his mark as a young promising gun in Blue Note’s avant-garde roster.

An intriguing collaboration. The Hammond – vibraphone combination is rare, Johnny “Hammond” Smith with Lem Winchester and Johnny Lyttle featuring organist Milton Harris comes to mind. It’s a successful combination, a solid but breezy sound, Big John making sure Hutcherson isn’t overpowered, Hutcherson laying out at times. Grant Green is aboard, his strong rhythm a driving force, his sparkling solos a big asset, inspired by Hutcherson, both of them had worked together on Green’s classic Idle Moments, with sassy drummer Otis Finch rounding out proceedings.

Damn, this record sounds good. And there’s a lot of saucy music, if you don’t count The Shadow Of Your Smile (A rare Patton let-down). Greasy shuffles, nice ‘n’ fast cookers, a catchy line in 5/4, Hank Mobley’s The Turnaround, all good. The sauciest, no doubt, is the Latin-tinged Latona, a hip melody, Green and Patton hitting it off like twins, Hutcherson all smiles, watching a kid on the corner taking a big bite from a melon.

Well on his way into a string of top-rate Blue Note records, Big John. Somehow, Patton hasn’t played a big part in the Hammond / acid jazz resurgence in the 1990’s like Jimmy McGriff or Lonnie Smith, a shame because he was up there with the greatest, inherently locked into the pocket like few in his time.

Patton passed away in Montclair, New Jersey in 2002.

Listen to Let ‘M Roll here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVP1BLFKbKI&list=PL7S3cM4jfwATC69Sa_HmhEoFW6Nsve1Fk

Kenny Clarke & Francy Boland The Golden 8 (Blue Note 1961)

- Francois Leave a comment

Klook defined the evolution from swing to bop and, in 1961, was already in business for twenty-five years, off to a good start with his European clique in Cologne. 

Personnel

Dusko Gojkovich (trumpet), Derek Humble (alto saxophone), Raymond Droz (alto horn), Karl Drevo (tenor saxophone), Chris Kellens (euphonium), Francy Boland (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums)

Recorded

on May 18 & 19, 1961 at Café Campi in Cologne

Released

as Blue Note 5001 in 1961

Track listing

Side A: La Campimania / Gloria / High Notes / Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise / The Golden Eight / Side B: Strange Meeting / You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To / Dorian 0437 / Poor Butterfly / Basse Cuite

The Big Bang needed the inexplicable to erupt. What is revolution but a unique string of occurrences, a gelling of spirits and ideas that leads to wars or new cultures – artistically speaking, new music, new painting, new forms of artificial art? Is there such a thing as progress anyway?

Did Kenny Clarke invent bebop drumming just by himself just like that? Most of the time, this has been the message given to general lovers of jazz. Of course, Clarke is the main man of modernist drumming, but let’s not forget that all major innovations, even those of Galileo, Einstein, Bach, Van Gogh, Parker, happen within a context of ideas.

Clarke shifted the emphasis from the bass drum to the ride cymbal, changing the small ensemble feeling by playing quarter notes, widening the spectrum with syncopated ‘bombs’ that interacted with horns and piano. His ideas perfectly suited Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and the other experimenters at the famous Minton’s sessions in Harlem in the early 1940’s, relieving the tensions that younger musicians felt existed in swing music.

Note the cymbal rhythm and accents on Stompin’ At The Savoy in 1941, a session with Charlie Christian, Hot Lips Page and Don Byas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxL7LU21l6A&list=RDzxL7LU21l6A&start_radio=1

In 1941, Clarke was already 27-years-old and had matured in the swing era, a period that as rhythm goes, was defined by the likes of Papa Jo Jones. Clarke had played the even 4/4 time in the band of Edgar Hayes in 1937/38, although the Pittsburgh-born drummer laid down weird off-beats here and there, according to Hayes.

Listen to Klook’s snare on Hayes’s Queen Isabella from 1937: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_r3VeX8LM&list=RDg4_r3VeX8LM&start_radio=1

Bandleader Teddy Hill didn’t like that crazy stuff he heard in 1939 and called the accents ‘kloop-mop’ or ‘klook-mop’. It seemed to be one of the inspirations for the term ‘bebop’. (Oop Bop Sh’Bam, a klook a mop…) and Clarke’s nickname ‘Klook’.

Clarke said that he had already developed ‘bebop’ patterns in the mid-1930’s, cautiously in the band of trumpeter Roy Eldridge, then in the group of saxophonist Lonnie Simmons. In the Downbeat issue of December 5, 1963, Clarke says of his time in Simmons’s band in late 1935 in New York City: “Freddie Green (future Basie guitarist!, FM) and I got something new going with Lonnie’s band at a Greenwich club long before the new rhythmic approach to playing drums was noticed. We’d come to the job early, at least 45 minutes before the other players, and work out patterns. The results were swinging; you could tell. Even the waitresses enjoyed what we were doing.” 

It should be mentioned, nonetheless, that fellow figureheads of drumming, such as Big Sid Catlett, who had experimented with breaking through even beats in swing music, and Papa Jo Jones, who had switched from the omnipresent hi-hat to the ride cymbal now and then, sensed that something in the rhythmic department needed to be challenged.

Note Papa Jo’s switch to cymbal behind Lester Young, not to mention his bass drum accents, on Count Basie’s Shorty George in 1938: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0aMTntG_EA&list=RDa0aMTntG_EA&start_radio=1

Revolution is evolution plus new insights. In the early 1940’s, Clarke had actually fully formed his new style, a unique way of playing that involved not only cymbal time and ‘bombs’ but immaculate detail of tone and exquisite, melodic tinges. Young lions like Max Roach, Tiny Kahn, Stan Levey and Art Blakey expanded on Clarke’s inventions, Roach and Blakey making particularly full use of the drum kit.

The innovation was done, the stylist remained. Oh boy, Klook was a hell of a stylist. After the recording ban in World War II from union leader Petrillo, instigated as part of a beef over royalty payments, Clarke was off to the races, engaged in pure refinement and deepening of his ‘bebop’ skills.

His work with Milt Jackson on Savoy is a prime example. He was a giant with the brushes. Both Hank Jones Trio (1956) and the whole B-side (!) of Miles Davis’s influential Walkin’ (1954) are typically suave, fluent and melodic. (More ‘brushes’ below) Let’s not forget Dexter Gordon’s Our Man In Paris (1963). This is Clarke all-out, mingling with fellow émigre and old friend Bud Powell. And for our Dutch fans, there’s his backing of singer Rita Reys on Jazz Pictures At An Exposition, a live one-off that is marked by tasteful playing by Klook, who bonds remarkably well with bass player Ruud Jacobs.

Hank Jones - The Trio
Miles Davis - Walkin'
Rita Reys - Singer Concerthall

After his emigration to Paris in 1956, Clarke became one of the American benchmarks for European jazz musicians and eventually founded the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, which recorded about two dozen albums between 1961 and 1975, a mixture of European class acts and American visitors/expats, somewhat the (popular) European counterpart of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Here’s the embryonic debut of their big band, a meeting between Clarke and the Belgian pianist in café Campi in Cologne, the place of avid jazz fan Gigi Campi. A Blue Note album, engineered by Wolfgang Hischmann, mastered by Rudy van Gelder, true to the label’s high standards, a record that sounds full like Spring blossom, balanced like a Maui surfer on the waves, crisp like French toast.

Crisp and propulsive Clarke and Boland lead a top-rate band through bop-oriented tunes, suavely mixing the unusual sounds of euphonium and alto horn with the customary tenor and trumpet front line. It’s very tasteful, to be expected from the king of understatement and subliminal messages. It’s the economy, stupid. It’s like Klook’s in the act of action painting but instead of coming up with the expected abstract image with many contrasting colors, turns in a perfectly realistic ton-sur-ton landscape.

It features no less than three short solos on snare drum with brushes, all fine examples of meaningful simplicity. Dorian 0437 is a highlight, a suggestive title and sublimely swinging tune that encompasses the mutually inspiring atmosphere of Club Campi, finding the European soloists on fire, notably the late trumpeter Dusko Gojkovich, already a force to reckon with at that time, blending well with our supreme drum innovator and stylist and his Belgian piano pal, who could’ve done worse that debuting with the The Golden 8 as a ‘big band’.

Listen to The Golden 8 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJoRyRgdcRQ&list=RDfJoRyRgdcRQ&start_radio=1

Terry Gibbs Take It From Me (Impulse 1964)

- Francois Leave a comment

Good advibe. 

Personnel

Terry Gibbs (vibraphone), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Sam Jones (bass), Louis Hayes (drums),

Recorded

on January 16, 1964 at Rudy van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as Impulse A-58 in 1964

Track listing

Side A: Take It From Me / El Fatso / Oge / Pauline’s Place / Side B: 8 LBS., 10 OZS / Gee Dad, It’s A Deegan / All The Things You Are / Honeysuckle Rose

Terry Gibbs is actually Julius Gubenko, born in New York City in October in 1924 from Ukranian ancestry. Yes, you’re right: 101 years old. Hurray! Didn’t he live through a lot, by God. Soldiers that survived the Western front, searching for a new role in society for good or worse. Soldiers that didn’t come home, madness and horror, the horror, destroying them in the trenches like brooms sweeping out the ashes in the morning.

He saw queer adults do the jitterbug, Gatsby’s fall to pieces after the stock market crash, skeleton men sitting on the porch all day rolling Bull Durham cigarettes, the only thing left in the world, enjoyed coolly and collectedly.

Shiny T-Model Fords came roaring from the oasis, lightbulb and telephone came from hell or heaven, while out there in the Deep South some bastard crowd hung a black man. Frederik Delano Roosevelt took on the monster commonly referred to as you-know-who in Jewish quarters on the continent. Gibbs/Gubenko, 17 years old, scanned the thick black headlines, meanwhile heard Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the new age.

Also in his orbit: the suburban sprawl, opulence, flower power, Vietnam. Etcetera and. Let’s try to be rational, he also experienced the gradual, general progress of mankind: increase of hygiene and good health, decrease of hunger. But new threats and challenges as well. He had to take all of this in, a world that went from horse and carriage to Tesla and telegram to Facetime in the blink of an eye.

Unperturbed, strong-willed Mr. Gibbs did his thing in a world where the meaning of thing is constantly debated. A go-getter, whose collection of activities is overwhelming. He started out with Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Louie Bellson, was in Benny Goodman’s band from 1946 to 1951, and while advancing the causes of female colleagues Terry Pollard, Pat Moran and Alice McLeod (Coltrane), the pianist/vibraphonist became musically acquainted with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy DeFranco, Horace Silver.

A bop legend that founded his killer Dream Band in 1959 featuring L.A.’s finest Mel Lewis, Conte Candoli, Frank Rosolino, Joe Maini, while making a career on tv in the 1950’s on the shows of Mel Tormé and Steve Allen, there where the glow of the tube for the first time in history filled just about every household in the land of the free and not that easy.

Who doesn’t love to browse through the imposing discography of Gibbs? A lot of good stuff since his Good Vibes debut on Savoy in 1951. Good vibrations certainly is a term that qualifies for Take It From Me, released on the legendary Impulse label in 1964.

Gibbs checked out the East Coast cats, Kenny Burrell, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. Good news. Even better, place of action is Rudy van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, almost goes without saying. Sam Jones and Louis Hayes, the swinging steam machine of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet since 1960, unbeatable. Kenny Burrell, foremost picker of the day, everyone wants to play with K.B., every note rings through, is the truth, is the most tasteful exhibition of bop and blues.

Here is how it goes, Jones/Hayes as tight-knit as tweed jackets, laying down a pocket as groovy as the murmur of the crowd in the Apollo Theatre, quite understated so as not to overpower the vibraphone of Gibbs, a concentrated conversation among themselves and a message to Gibbs and Burrell, go ahead and swing boys, we know where you’re at.

Gibbs, who brought saucy, blues-based songs to his New Jersey session, is in a good mood, he’s thinking I like the ideas these guys pass on, and, behind Burrell, who’s Burrell, classy, fiery, elegant, stays active with compliments and asides and reflections upon their blues-drenched selves. He’s feeling what these guys are up to, take it from him, and they’re feeling their way through his realm, all concerned share a language without words.

It’s all good, a relaxed date underlined by the brushes of Louis Hayes (also still around, played at Spike Wilner’s Jazzcultural in NYC just recently!) though the meaty El Fatso may be a cut above the rest.

A cut above the rest is nothing unusual for Terry Gibbs.

Listen to Take It From Me on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vSJK6vT5M&list=PLCJ-KW1SZ34ymX6aESSPxnggFry8q3pzB

Charles Kynard Where It’s At! (Pacific Jazz 1963)

- Francois Leave a comment

Charles Kynard’s gospel and blues-drenched first album as a leader didn’t cut a bad figure. 

Personnel

Charles Kynard (organ), Clifford Scott (tenor saxophone), Howard Roberts (guitar),  Ray Crawford (guitar A1), Milt Turner (drums), Leroy Henderson (drums A1)

Recorded

in 1963 at Pacific Jazz Studios, Los Angeles

Released

as Pacific Jazz 72 in 1963

Track listing

Side A: I’ll Fly Away / Amazing Grace / Motherless Child / The Lord Will Make A Way Somehow / I Want To Be Ready / Side B: Smooth Sailing / I Wonder / Blue Greens And Beans / Sports Lament / Where It’s At

I always thought that Elliott, the boy from E.T., and Elliott Smith, the greatest songwriter since Lennon & McCartney, were the only ones that had and extra ‘t’ behind their name. Positively off-beat.

Apparently not. It was Smith’s own choosing, but E.T.’s Elliott Taylor (definitely) and Charles Elliott Kynard (likely) had had no say in the matter.

Kynard, born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1933, may not have been the greatest organist since pioneer Jimmy Smith, but no mistaking was a top-rate B3 burner.

Kynard is known for a feature on Tom Waits’s Blue Valentines in 1978. That was a good ending to a career – he sadly passed away in 1979 – in jazz music which started in the early 1950’s in Kansas City. Apparently – liner notes reveal – Kynard was an excellent Oscar Peterson-styled pianist who switched to organ by fault when a club manager requested he’d play the house organ.

As a teenager, Kynard had regularly snuck in the Metropolitan Baptist Church to play the church organ. In 1957, Kynard already formed organ combos, notably with tenor saxophonist Tex Johnson. By the way, his father Ben Kynard was alto and baritone saxophonist and arranger in Lionel Hampton’s band, not to mention composer of perennial favorite Red Top.

Kynard’s stint on Prestige from 1968-71 sealed his reputation as a groove maestro, a greasy and funky coupling with, among others, Grant Green, Houston Person and Bernard Purdie. Consequently, he recorded a couple of albums for Mainstream.

His debut as a leader in 1963, Where It’s At – recorded shortly after his appearance on Sonny Stitt’s My Mother’s Eyes – doesn’t disappoint. A curious  but soulful effort, dividing sides into gospel and blues. Evidently, soul jazz organ made the bar and club audience in the 1950s and 1960s think about church, that’s part of the reason of why it stuck, and gospel was already in the bones of Wild Bill Davis and Jimmy Smith, so it wasn’t essential to seduce the record buying audience with straightforward gospel music, the message was already sent to it subliminally.

But Kynard likely thought it couldn’t hurt to remind people of their heritage, which of course, should only meet with consent. Actually, he was doing better than Gene Ammons, the biggest soul jazz star besides Jimmy Smith, whose gospel record Preachin’ is a mediocre effort in a string of great and groovy records on Prestige in the 1960’s.

Side A is Kynard’s sermon and he’s attending to the Army of The Lord with two warhorses, Amazing Grace and Motherless Child, while surprising it with lesser-known repertoire, I Want To Be Ready, The Lord Will Make A Way Somehow and, I’ll Fly Away. His band is good, couldn’t been otherwise with saxophonist Clifford Scott, guitarist Howard Roberts and drummer Milt Turner (from the Ray Charles band) in tow, working up a strong gospel beat and a lot of heat. Though it’s I’ll Fly Away featuring guitarist Ray Crawford and drummer Leroy Henderson, plus Ronnell Bright on piano, a roaring ditty, that takes the cake.

Kynard uses side B to sing the blues. Though his sound is still a bit (too) old-fashioned, full register and all, his playing is tasteful, not to mention including superb bass playing, and he contributes swinging solos on Arnett Cobb’s Smooth Sailing and the sprightly blues line Blue Greens And Beans. Clifford Scott, a welcome old-school big-toned addition on any soul jazz record, fires up the hearth of Cecil Gant’s slow blues I Wonder, which also thrives on the saucy licks of guitarist Howard Roberts. Climax Where It’s At is a Jimmy McGriff-style r&b cooker.

Either behind the pulpit or in the juke joint, Kynard proved to be a debutant with plenty Hammond organ chops.

Listen to Where It’s At on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g95RuK-_FNU&list=RDg95RuK-_FNU&start_radio=1

Herb Ellis Meets Jimmy Giuffre (Verve 1959)

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The finest early album of the down-homiest picker among modern jazz guitarists.  

Personnel

Herb Ellis (guitar), Jimmy Giuffre (tenor saxophone, arranger), Richie Kamuca (tenor saxophone), Art Pepper, Bud Shank (alto saxophone), Jim Hall (rhythm guitar), Lou Levy (piano), Joe Mondragon (bass), Stan Levey (drums)

Recorded

on March 26, 1959 at Radio Recorders Studio in Los Angeles

Released

as MV-G 831 in 1959

Track listing

Side A: Goose Grease / When Your Lover Has Gone / Remember / Patricio / Side B: A Country Boy / You Know / My Old Flame / People Will Say We’re In Love

Incredible LP. One that makes you jump and shout and way wow wow wow and hmm this is something else.

He wasn’t much on my mind, Herb Ellis, back in the days. I was obsessed by crackerjack guitarists like Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino. Also, I was put off by the first Ellis record that I bought, Nothing But The Blues. Too much cliché patterns for my sake.

Of course, his work with Oscar Peterson couldn’t be neglected. Rhythm guitarist beyond peer. The Freddie Green of modern mainstream jazz. (Later on, I learned that Ellis – who started out with the Casa Loma Orchestra and Jimmy Dorsey, got famous with O.P.’s trio, worked in the L.A. studios for years, returned on Concord with dozens of records – was also part of the mostly forgotten trio Soft Winds with pianist/vocalist Lou Carter and violinist Johnny Frigo, ahead of their time with a chamber music-ish format that combined Nat King Cole with MJQ and foreshadowed The Hi-Lo’s. Versatile cat, Herb Ellis.

Then came, after the excellent debut Ellis In Wonderland and Nothing But The Blues, wow wow wow and booom: Meets Jimmy Giuffre.

Why does it affect me so strongly?

Is there anybody as down-home among modern jazz guitarists as Herb Ellis? Take a listen to Ellis/Giuffre’s Goose Grease, sassy opening cut, the most hill-billy-ish tune on the album, or A Country Boy, Herb’s bluesy winner. Ellis comes from Lester Young and Charlie Parker, but earthy is his middle name and I love that so much: slurs, bends, all those little connecting licks you’ve heard somewhere else… T-Bone Walker, Lefty Frizell, Jimmy Bryant. Dirty boots walking through the mud in the Appalachian mountains. Scent of magnolia fields. Fresh apple pie. Back porch bliss!

Besides, the development of his solos is textbook stuff, creative pattern after pattern building up tension to smoothly resolved finales.

It’s the combination with Jimmy Giuffre’s arrangements that does another trick. The music runs smoothly and with gusto like Kris Kristofferson’s convoy. Comforting warm blend of saxes, no brass. Deceptively simple, nifty and effective underscoring of Ellis’s lines. Check out the bittersweet mood that is conveyed by the sax section during When Your Lover Has Gone‘s finale. Or the subtle shift of tempo at the end of Remember. Everything about the fast-paced People Will Say We’re In Love is meaningful and connected.

(Can’t say enough of Jimmy Giuffre, super-creative guy whose stature among jazz fans continues to grow as time goes by).

And how’s that for a band? Giuffre and Richie Kamuca on tenor, Art Pepper and Bud Shank on alto, Jim Hall on rhythm guitar, Lou Levy on piano, Joe Mondragon on bass and Stan Levey on drums. West Coast-based modernists par excellence.

Truly irresistible stuff. Finally really felt what Herb Ellis was about!

Listen to the full album on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI9AoqfKibI&list=RDgI9AoqfKibI&start_radio=1

Lee Morgan Leeway (Blue Note 1960)

- Francois Leave a comment

His (real) way or the highway. 

Personnel

Lee Morgan (trumpet), Jackie McLean (alto saxophone), Bobby Timmons (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Art Blakey (drums)

Recorded

on April 28, 1960 at Rudy van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BLP 4034 in 1960

Track listing

Side A: These Are Soulful Days / The Lion And The Wolff/ Side B: Midtown Blues / Nakatani Suite

There’s a Kurt Vonnegut meme that’s floating around like a turtle in the high tide. It’s the one (paraphrase, FM) where the writer recounts his wife saying why on earth should he go out buying envelopes while all he needs to do is send his friend an email. Vonnegut replies that there are benefits to going out. He’ll have a chat with the paperboy, hear a song come out of a cab, hear the rustling of the leaves or see a cop on a horse click-clack by. Something to stir the imagination.

Grandaddy speaking, perhaps. But implied deep meaning disguised as cliché, no less. This comes from a man who didn’t want – was unable – to write about the horror of the Dresden bombing at the end of World War II. But Dresden eventually came to Vonnegut, as he, somewhat the Dalai Lama of literature, was fooling around with this and that. Ergo: Slaughterhouse Five.

It’s a bit sad that Vonnegut’s wisdom needs repeating (ironically, through the internet and social media) but it has become all the more poignant and relevant in the overwhelming age of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the constraints of algorithms. (Not to be confused with the wisdom of slow food, slow traveling, slow fashion, slow sex – admirable efforts but the difference is Vonnegut shared it for free while ‘slow culture’ needs to make a profit)

Let’s read it as a call to arms.

If AI benefits our general health and welfare, let it blossom. Even as an efficiency tool to journalism, what the hell. But ho, ho and ho. Ask questions first. Do we want it to make human journalism disappear? And step back and consider this. Who is behind A.I.? We don’t know who, behind the surface, has access to information and so is actually running the show, yet we give up privacy and “Open” A.I. is making billions. No disclosure. Disclosure first, then we’ll see. Thoughts that better minds work out in depth elsewhere, but it needs reminding.

How do we get from A.I. and algorithm to Lee Morgan? Oh, no problem, listen here. Question. How would you like it if A.I. gets so perfect, having incorporated all Lee Morgan and Blue Note data, that it will be able to produce new Lee Morgan records on Blue Note, seemingly indistinguishable from the real thing. Or make it able for anyone with a laptop to produce ersatz Morgan records. Pro or con? Think hard.

(Mellow D73879: “My violet information brain cell is telling me that they used to play a thing called jazz from 1917 till approximately 2188. There were 4 or 5 people on a stage that banged on goat skins and blew air through copper tubes and there were people called ‘the audience’ that applauded after every song.”

Mellow D11255: “Sounds absurd. Wait a second, let me check my violet information brain cell. Yes, I see. They also pressed black discs from poison and used a diamant needle to send air waves from speakers into a room. Cool, but rather primitive.” 

Mellow D73879: “The freedom of creating musical ideas on the spot, without a safety net. That’s bad. That’s probably where all the trouble started, don’t you think? Wait… Yes, that’s it. Freedom was the cause of chaos and the end of civilization.” 

Mellow D11255: “Of course, that’s easy to say from our point of view. We’ve got our monthly shots of happiness ‘n’ bliss.”

Words aren’t spoken here. Feelings and discussions between the Mellow D’s are transmitted through globs of glutinous slime. Tangible things like earth, eyes, metal, underwear, dirt, aren’t relevant anymore. There are only dimensions and digits.

Mellow D11255: “It seems jazz was connected with what they used to call a culture. First it was used to move your hands and feet. Then it was mainly a thing to be digested by the ear and the intellect. It consisted of sounds – the air waves you spoke of – that reflected the plight of people with brown skin, who were suppressed by people with white skin. What is skin?”

Mellow D73879: “It all sounds positively ludicrous har har har!”)

Listen some more. The record that is pictured above was bought in a record shop in The Netherlands long ago and though this in itself is no big achievement, it is the opposite of letting yourself being swept away in the wasteland of Spotify’s fast food. Record store equates with discovery, Spotify (not downgrading evident advantages) equates with conformity and dulling of the senses. (not least exploitation of artists, other subject)

Not having a monopoly on realness, interchangeable with several other vintage modern jazz records, though a perfect example, Leeway stands for realness on several levels. Don’t you agree Lee Morgan (and Blue Note) is the real thing?

As if it needs confirmation. But aye! Damn right. Grounded in bebop, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan added his own brand of modernism, a virile mix of fire and a brassy full trumpet tone. He’s a go-getter. Doesn’t fool around, what you see is what you get though he’ll give you a certain margin to move around with your opinions and feelings…

Streetwise. Timbres and accents, slurs and whoops are adjectives of sassy sentences of saucy and sometimes lurid tales he tells. You see him hanging onto the bar rail for dear life, cracking up from laughter. Having a fight with his girl. Making up with his girl. Candy Candy Candy I can’t let you go… 

Candy lived in affluent times, the Korean War was over, the future looked bright, the suburban sprawl developed like a rash on a giant’s body. Neighbors competed against each other with bigger fridges, bigger cars, almost everybody saw Ed Sullivan introducing Elvis Presley, even the overtime workers in Detroit car factories, black and white, the blacks still worse off, always on guard for a racist cop. Morgan talks with a hustler who talks with a bricklayer that is out of a job who talks with a chorus girl whose boyfriend won a lottery and lends a dime to a beggar to hop on the bus to visit a friend in the Sing Sing jail…

It’s all there on his cooperation with Jackie McLean, Bobby Timmons, Paul Chambers, Art Blakey. McLean’s urgent alto sax, controlled passion. Timmons’s classy piano playing, ringing notes, barrelhouse tinges. Rumbling Blakey rolls, the fat Blakey sound! Super tunes, plainly awesome. Courtesy of pianist/composer from Philly, Cal Massey. These Are Soulful Days, unforgettable and beautiful melody, a celebration of life and communal spirit. Nakatani Suite a good contender, kids with mouths like razors playing hide and seek in Chinatown.

Morgan takes McLean’s Midtown Blues by the balls, a hot rod going for the extra mile. Finally, his homage: The Lion And The Wolff.

Yes, the Blue Note guys, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. The legendary label, now part of the corporate structure, back then factually a little independent company, was as real and authentic as they came. It nurtured the musicians they believed in (one of the prime BN artists, Lee Morgan, started recording at age 18 in 1956, was into his eighth album with Leeway in 1960, would stay with the company until his untimely death in 1972). Gave them time to rehearse. Music, production, imagery was top-tier.

Still an example for fab contemporary labels like Cellar Music, small wonder.

Blue Note was out there hocking real stuff. Morgan was out there night after night, pouring out his heart, blowing the blues. Jackie McLean too, Bobby Timmons, Paul Chambers, Art Blakey. It’s a realness people crave (again) more and more, a desire reflected by various YouTube channels, podcasts, new record stores popping up or old ones doing fine.

We want realness, we want people with passion sharing obsessions with other people with passion. (We have, in jazz, real cats: arrived figureheads like Christian McBride, Joshua Redman, Dado Moroni, new breed like Emmet Cohen, Sarah Hanahan, Erena Terakubo.) The biggies may have to scratch their heads and wonder if strict adherence to algorithms suffices to keep customers aboard.

We’re desperately trying not to be constantly staring at a tiny screen all the time, developing a swan neck and nearsightedness and hypertension. Erosion of soul, while soul is paramount. Sometimes buying an envelope on a soulful day is all we need.

Lee Morgan
Cal Massey
Lee Morgan envelope

(Lee Morgan; Cal Massey; Envelope)

Listen to Leeway on Don Kaart’s super jazz channel All That Jazz on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hurvE1QmrHo&list=RDhurvE1QmrHo&start_radio=1

Grassella Oliphant The Grass Roots (Atlantic 1965)

- Francois Leave a comment

The enigmatic multi-tasker Grassella Oliphant made an absolute corker in 1965 with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. 

Personnel

Harold Ousley (tenor saxophone), Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone), Ray McKinney (bass), Grassella Oliphant (drums)

Recorded

on January 19 & 2, 1965 in New York

Released

as Atlantic 1438 in 1965

Track listing

Side A: One For The Masses / The Descendant / Star Dust / Uptown Hours / Mrs. O  / Side B: Haitian Lady / Shiny Stockings / Grandfather’s Waltz / Step Lightly / Mood Indigo

Quite the adventurer, this Grassella Oliphant, for many jazz fans either an unknown or enigma. The story goes that young Grassella, born in 1929 in Aliquippa near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a kid who’d won dance amateur shows with his brother and crouched behind drum kits in clubs as a boy, had enlisted in the Army at the (under-)age of 15. One of those know-nothing adolescents and romantics looking for excitement that you read about in Im Westen Nichts Neues. He ended up playing in the Army jazz combo. His mother wrote a letter to President Roosevelt. Before the teenager was sent overseas, the truth came out and he was sent back to his hometown.

Oliphant worked in a steel mill and attended business school. He played in Pittsburgh with Ahmad Jamal, guitarist Ray Crawford and Tommy Turrentine before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1949. Then, and this is not a novelist’s tale, this is the plain truth, he became an IBM computer programmer and worked for almost two years in Okinawa, Japan. Back in Pittsburgh, he joined the Ahmad Jamal trio featuring Ray Crawford and bassist Eddie Calhoun and accompanied Sarah Vaughan. Consequently, in D.C. again, he managed the Abart’s International jazz club and led the house band, appearing with visiting luminaries such as Art Farmer, Charlie Rouse, Gene Ammons, Lucky Thompson, Lou Donaldson, Kenny Burrell and Oscar Pettiford.

This tells you he’d gained plenty experience before entering the studios to add his drummer’s touch to records of organist Shirley Scott (The Soul Is Willing, Soul Shoutin’) and pianist Herman Foster (The Explosive Piano Of Herman Foster). Among few others. Oliphant is an under-recorded drummer.

Oliphant made two records under his own name, The Grass Roots and The Grass Is Greener, puns intended. Two winners. The latter featuring Grant Green and Big John Patton was reviewed in Flophouse Magazine years ago. See here: http://flophousemagazine.com/2014/03/17/grassella-oliphant-the-grass-is-greener-atlantic-1967/ A good’n. But not nearly as good as The Grass Roots, a first-class sleeper.

Grassella Oliphant - The Grass Is Greener
Shirley Scott - The Soul Is Willing
Herman Foster - The Explosive Piano Of Herman Foster

In 1965, the strongest asset of Oliphant’s label, Atlantic, which had made jazz history with John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, was Eddie Harris. They would strike gold with Charles Lloyd, who appealed to the burgeoning hippie crowd, a year later. Oliphant fell through the cracks, but he made his mark with a record of blues, ballads, Basie, Ellington and modal-tinged tunes.

He got Bobby Hutcherson aboard, a progressive cat who was making fresh avant-leaning records for Blue Note Records. The combination of Oliphant, writer and saxophonist Harold Ousley and Hutcherson pays off, not least because, as the liner notes make clear, this was a working band for some time. They’re sharp as knives, Oliphant is perceptive and precise and The Grass Roots is a powerful Atlantic record with the sound resonant and upfront, kicking your ass through the stable.

Ousley’s The Descendant and Uptown Hours wouldn’t have been out of place on, say, one of Jackie McLeans’s mid-60s Blue Note albums, finding Hutcherson in fine form. Ousley’s solo in Joe Henderson’s slow blues Step Lightly reminds of Stanley Turrentine, soul feeling and all, high praise.

I can’t say enough of Grandfather’s Waltz. To start with: ‘it’s the melody, stupid!‘ It’s one of the most beautiful melodies that I’ve ever heard. Sometimes all you need is a beautiful melody, sometimes (as much as possible I would say), all you need is musicians thriving on the melody.

The way this band performs critic Gene Lees’s beauty is par excellence. It’s a real tearjerker, at least it always keeps hitting me in the gut and bringing bittersweet memories and making me feel the pain and the joy of love.

Oliphant dropped out of the scene in the 1970’s. He – no, this is not made up – was manager of a golf course. Letting all those wankers work on their swing. He did came back though to jazz up the New Jersey area in the 00’s for a while. Oliphant passed away in 2017 at the ripe old age of 88.

Here’s The Descendant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEX6ZwlSL3U&list=RDgEX6ZwlSL3U&start_radio=1

Here’s the stunningly beautiful Grandfather’s Waltz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqAE5WFZ8Jw&list=RDHqAE5WFZ8Jw&start_radio=1