Review

Stanley Turrentine Jubilee Shout!!! (Blue Note 1962/86)

- Francois 7 Comments

Don’t let the marketing gimmick of exclamation marks scare you off. Stanley Turrentine’s Jubilee Shout!!! delivers. It’s a lively, down-home session. Sonny Clark’s aboard. Yet, it was shelved and wasn’t released until 1986.

Stanley Turrentine - Jubilee Shout

Personnel

Stanley Turrentine (tenor saxophone), Tommy Turrentine (trumpet), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Sonny Clark (piano), Butch Warren (bass), Al Harewood (drums)

Recorded

on October 18, 1962 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BST 84112 in 1986

Track listing

Side A:
Jubilee Shout
My Ship
You Said It
Side B:
Brother Tom
Cotton Walk
You Better Go Now (Little Girl Blue)


Stanley Turrentine. Mr. T. Fleshy, friendly face. A man you love to love. A Flophouse favorite. Adored by lovers of classic, smoky modern jazz. He’s got that thang. In 1962, the tenor saxophonist had hit his stride on the Blue Note label. Turrentine’s cooperation with pianist Les McCann, That’s Where It’s At, had been the last in a series of five albums that started in 1960 with Blue Hour, Turrentine’s association with The Three Sounds. His accessible, smart albums were good sellers.

Big, slightly breathy and warm-blooded, Turrentine’s tone renders a night out into town totally unnecessary. Save some money for a new vacuum cleaner. Stanley is party enough, blurs your head in drifting shreds of smoke, teleports the scent of soul food, the chatter of nocturnal Harlem nights right to the heart of your residence. Or flexible workspace. Or Club Med bungalow. He brings the blues. Not a hoarse kind, but stylized through the use of rich, resonant lines that are built from notes ending with a trademark, ever-so-slight vibrato and snappy bent note. Simultaneously, Turrentine displays modern jazz sensibility, but eschews excessive frills. A professor of tension and release.

Bonus: Sonny Clark! The maestro, three months short of his unfortunate passing, recorded erratically in 1962. But the dates he did were still top-notch: Jackie McLean’s Tippin’ The Scales, Grant Green’s posthumous Nigeria, Oleo and Born To Be Blue, and Dexter Gordon’s iconic A Swingin’ Affair. A couple of blues-drenched affairs: Don Wilkerson’s Preach Brother!, (just one exclamation mark!) Ike Quebec’s posthumous Easy Living. That’s it. Excluding Turrentine’s Jubilee Shout. Clark thinks out of the box, presenting hip blues voicings and eccentric asides in clusters of long, flowing lines that may not exactly stretch the boundaries of bars as frequently as in his heyday, but nevertheless comprise ample proof of a mind that still overflowed with ideas.

A bunch of top-rate guys to say the least, Stanley and Tommy Turrentine, Sonny Clark and Kenny Burrell have a lot of room to stretch out in a slow blues (Cotton Walk), uptempo cooker with a nifty line and stop-time rhythm (You Said It), lilting swingers (Brother Tom, My Ship) and a ballad (Little Girl Blue – wrongly credited on the vinyl release as You Better Go Now). The blast of the album is Jubilee Shout. A rousing gospel rhythm with pounding piano chords on the one and two sets the pace and is repeated between the 4/4 sections, which create room for the solo time of, subsequently, Stanley Turrentine, Tommy Turrentine, Sonny Clark and Kenny Burrell. It’s the musical equivalent of the archetypical lyric, ‘Sometimes I sing the blues, but I know I should be praying.’ Either way is right by me.

Why didn’t Blue Note release Jubilee Shout at the time? It’s a crackerjack session. Well, that was up to Alfred. The indomitable Lion also shelved, for instance, Lou Donaldson’s Lush Life, Lee Morgan’s Tom Cat, Wayne Shorter’s The Soothsayer and Grant Green’s Solid, which proved to be one of the guitarist’s crown achievements upon its release in 1979. However, Lion had many sessions to choose from in these instances and generally didn’t release more than three albums per artist per year. Market overflow wasn’t an obstacle in Turrentine’s case. That’s Where It’s At was the only album in 1962 to date. Maybe the title track and Cotton Walk were deemed too long. At any rate, the album was first released on a two-fer in 1978 and finally came out in 1986 with the originally intented cover art and catalogue number. CD release followed in 1988. It has also been included in the much-discussed, appreciated vinyl reissue series of Music Matters. The album was destined to bob up from the wealthy lake of Turrentine’s catalogue.

James Moody Another Bag (Argo 1962)

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While working prolifically with the Dizzy Gillespie band in the sixties, James Moody kept recording as a leader as well. His string of Argo albums are in line with the Chicago label’s policy of releasing attractive, blues-based jazz but, like Another Bag, have a lot more to offer.

James Moody - Another Bag

Personnel

James Moody (tenor saxophone, flute), Paul Serrano (trumpet), John Avant (trombone), Kenny Barron (piano), Ernest Outlaw (bass), Marshall Thompson (drums), Tom McIntosh (arranger)

Recorded

on January 30, 1962 at Ter-Mar Studios, Chicago

Released

as Argo 695

Track listing

Side A:
Sassy Lady
Ally (parts 1, 2, 3)
Spastic
Side B:
Minuet In B
Cup Bearers
The Day After
Pleyel d’Jaime


Moody is best known for his long associations with Dizzy Gillespie in the sixties and eighties, that’s probably why his solo work is sometimes taken for granted. But Moody had worked with the bop pioneers Gillespie and Max Roach as early as the late forties and early fifties, scored an unusual hit with 1952’s Moody’s Mood For Love and, besides being a smokin’, articulate tenorist and altoist that inspired John Coltrane, was one of the major flutists in jazz history.

Another familiar composition from Moody is Last Train From Overbrook, which instantly became a standard, from the Argo album of the same name from 1958. There are no future evergreens on Another Bag. It is, however, filled with varied repertoire which is presented with gusto and intelligence.

Sassy Lady is a delicious, mid-tempo blues, driven by the smooth and hot drum rolls of Marshall Thompson. The three-horn line-up injects it with an alluring bar room feeling, contrasted effectively by Moody’s staccato tenor runs. Moody’s tenor is strongly featured in Ally as well. It’s a swingin’ affair bookended by classical themes in which Moody’s contemporary sound and style also suggest the influence of Lester Young and Wardell Gray.

The seemingly effortless group interplay of Playel d’Jaime is reminiscent of the iconic 1956 Miles Davis group that recorded the Workin’-series on Prestige. The depth and harmonic finesse of Moody’s tenor work is considerable. Minuet In D employs a tacky waltz drum figure set against a walkin’ bass, a lithe, suspenceful bounce that triggers spirited solo’s from Moody and the young Kenny Barron. Trombonist Tom McIntosh arranged many of Moody’s tunes during the late fifties and early sixties and does a fine job on Another Bag as well.

Another Bag suggests that Moody & Co enjoyed themselves very much incorporating intelligent design into a solid hard bop book. As a consequence, the listener is in for a very rewarding listening experience.

Chester Thompson Powerhouse (Black Jazz 1971)

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Powerhouse is a groove gem from organist Chester Thompson, who spent the biggest part of his career in funk group Tower Of Power and mega act Santana.

Chester Thompson - Powerhouse

Personnel

Chester Thompson (organ), Rudolph Johnson (saxophone), Al Hall (trombone), Raymond Pounds (drums)

Recorded

in 1971

Released

as BJ-6 in 1971

Track listing

Side A:
Mr. T
Trip One
Side B:
Weird Harold
Powerhouse


Of all the musicians that recorded for the short-lived, innovative Black jazz label, organist Chester Thompson’s career, obviously because it was outside jazz, was most succesful. Thompson, who had grown up playing organ in church, and like many of his generation fell under the spell of modern organ jazz pioneer Jimmy Smith, toured the chitlin’ circuit with saxophonist Rudy Johnson in the late sixties. After his record debut Powerhouse in 1971, Thompson joined Tower Of Power, playing a crucial role in the popular and inventive funk group from 1973 till 1983. Thompson’s stretch on organ and keyboards with Carlos Santana lasted an impressive quarter century, from 1983 to 2009. During the mid-eighties, Thompson temporarily changed his name to Chester “T” Thompson to avoid confusion with the band’s drummer, Chester “Hey, I’m the real Chester!” Thompson. Leaving Santana, Thompson returned to his straigh-ahead jazz roots, recording Mixology in 2010 and performing frequently in the Bay area.

Black Jazz was founded in 1971 by pianist Gene Russell and Dick Schory, former drummer, audio tech and owner of Ovation Records, which came to distribute Black Jazz. It specialized in funk jazz and free jazz and shares the honor with Stanley Cowell and Charles Tolliver’s Strata-East label, which was also founded in ’71, of being a groundbreaking jazz record label of Afro-American ownership. Like Strata-East, Black Jazz is highly collectable and characterised by trademark, classy black and white sleeves. Powerhouse is number 6 in a catalogue that runs to only 20 albums and includes albums by pianists Walter Bishop Jr. and Doug Carn, who was a bestseller and the label’s most succesful artist.

A versatile player, Chester Thompson embellishes slow-dragging funk cuts like Powerhouse (listen here) with tacky blues voicings not unlike those of the great Jimmy McGriff, while his propulsive right hand lines occasionally decide to dribble playfully through the defense of the astringent, basic chords changes. The mid-tempo Trip One’s a more modern jazzy tune, in which Thompson’s style is close to the bebop-infested, pianistic lines of Jimmy Smith and Don Patterson. Underneath the cuts of Powerhouse boils a fat groove provided by drummer Raymond Pound (and Thompson’s bass lines) that show the influence of master funk jazz drummer Idris Muhammad. It may lack Muhammad’s crisp touch, but it’s deep and baaaaad.

Tommy Flanagan Overseas (Prestige 1957)

- Francois 4 Comments

In it goes, smoothly, like the royal lemon pie of my favorite pattisier. The ingredients of pianist Tommy Flanagan’s debut album as a leader, Overseas, are the best of the best, farm-fresh and complement each other in all sorts of interesting ways.

Tommy Flanagan - Overseas

Personnel

Tommy Flanagan (piano), Wilbur Little (bass), Elvin Jones (drums)

Recorded

in Stockholm, Sweden in 1957

Released

as PRLP 7134 in 1957

Track listing

Side A:
Relaxin’ At Camarillo
Chelsea Bridge
Eclypso
Beat’s Up
Skal Brother
Side B:
Little Rock
Verdandi
Delarna
Willow Weep For Me


Listening to Flanagan follow up Charlie Parker’s speed devilish Relaxin’ At Camarillo with the elegiac, orchestral Billy Strayhorn classic Chelsea Bridge is a gift for the auditory senses. Abundant proof of the pianist’s class. A lot of Flanagan’s inventive and influential flair is present on these tunes and album: a striking penchant to alter melodies, often with the use of surprisingly chic dissonance, wonderful continuity of ideas, a snappy beat. Moreover, that triumvirate of talents – let’s make it a foursome adding a delicate yet determined touch – is put to use for creating, as Flanagan once put it succinctly, ‘an overall tonality’.

Ever since arriving in New York from his hometown Detroit in 1956, Flanagan had been in constant demand. Influenced by both the old masters Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and Nat King Cole and bebop pioneer Bud Powell, Flanagan adapted easily to differing surroundings. For much of the sixties and seventies, Flanagan accompanied Ella Fitzgerald, which prevented him from recording many albums as a leader in the sixties. During the following decades, however, Flanagan sealed his reputation as a master of the trio format. As a sideman in the late fifties and sixties, the pianist not only recorded prolifically with a number of top-rate colleagues like Kenny Burrell, Kenny Dorham, Phil Woods, Dexter Gordon and Coleman Hawkins, but also partook in two undisputed all-time classic albums: Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus and John Coltrane’s Giant Steps.

How it came about that Flanagan got the lucky break to be involved in Coltrane’s complex masterpiece instead of first choice Cedar Walton is recounted here in a talk of Walton with journalist Marc “Jazzwax” Myers, jazz ambassador sui generis. Incidentally, one of Flanagan’s many Enja albums, 1982’s Giant Steps, is dedicated solely to Coltrane’s masterwork, and masterfully so. Did Flanagan feel the need to prove that his playing had improved since 1959?

Overseas, which was recorded in Stockholm, Sweden while Flanagan, drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Wilbur Little toured with trombonist J.J. Johnson, spawns immaculate, spirited trio work. You will cherish the Elvin Jones masterclass of drumming with brushes. Not only does Jones swing effortlessly, his brush work is probing and highly charged. Very unusual and an absolute gas! The pocket at breakneck speed that Jones and Little lay down in Verdandi – a title and composition that suggest the influence of John Lewis; think Milano or Vendôme – is a dream for a pianist of Flanagan’s capacities, who answers the call with a showcase of virtuosity for beauty’s sake. There are a number of blues-related tunes on Overseas, Flanagan explores the form like a geologist a cave, picking in crevices, drawing back in contemplation, moving on and (unlike many geologists), finding light at the end of the tunnel. The one-minute solo in Skal Brothers, a tune that has a Ray Bryant-feel, is awe-inspiring.

The rumble of Eclypso’s theme is reminiscent of Caravan. Flanagan would re-visit his original tune on the 1973 Enja album Eclypso. By then, the public was used to the release of a splendid Flanagan album. In 1957, the flawless, ambitious Overseas announced the arrival of a leading piano artist with tremendous abilities, charm and vision.

Charles Mingus Right Now: Live At The Jazz Workshop (Fantasy 1964)

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As the reflection of a typically volatile live performance of Charles Mingus, Right Now: Live At The Jazz Work Shop is indispensable.

Charles Mingus - Right Now

Personnel

Charles Mingus (bass), Clifford Jordan (tenor saxophone), John Handy (alto saxophone A1), Jane Getz (piano), Danny Richmond (drums)

Recorded

on June 2 & 3, 1964 at The Jazz Workshop, San Francisco

Released

as Fantasy LP 6017

Track listing

Side A:
New Fables
Side B:
Meditation (For A Pair Of Wire Cutters)


By 1964, bassist and composer Charles Mingus had been in the business for two decades, contributing to the bebop revolution and recording landmark albums that stretched the boundaries of mainstream jazz, such as Pithecanthropus Erectus, Mingus Ah Um and Black Saint And The Sinner Lady. In the summer of that year, the beguiling line-up of Mingus’ latest group including reed wizard Eric Dolphy had partly disbanded. Pianist Jaki Byard’s last appearance with Mingus had been in April. Trumpeter Johnny Coles fell ill and Dolphy stayed behind in Berlin after their European tour. (where Dolphy died from a diabetes attack on June 28, three weeks after Mingus recorded Right Now) Of that group, tenorist Clifford Jordan remained alongside the longtime Mingus sidekick on the drums, Danny Richmond. Right Now doesn’t give the impression that Mingus temporarily lacked inspiration because of Dolphy’s and Byard’s absence. On the contrary.

New Fables is a reworking of Fables Of Faubles, Mingus’ famous biting protest tune directed against the segregationist governer of Arkansas, Orval E. Faubus. Mingus continued playing the other composition of the album, Meditation On Integration, from the ‘Dolphy’-era, giddily retitled as Meditation (For A Pair Of Wire Cutters). Both tunes cross the 23 minutes line, but keep interesting to the last note. It’s a revealing experience to hear Mingus direct the flow of the music in New Fables through his driving, immaculate bass playing, shifting tempo’s like a madman and pushing the group to segue into and out of themes, wild shuffles, a cappella horn parts and slow blues parts. Tenorist Clifford Jordan is inspired to go well beyond his game and John Handy, who had a history in Mingus groups, puts in a hard-driving mix of bop and blues. Mingus also stokes up the fire with his archetypical, hoarse exhortations that sound like crosses between the fire and brimstone of the altar and the hog call.

An equally rousing personality as Mingus, drummer Danny Richmond is integral to the group’s spontaneous combustion. He blends proficiency with intuition and has the guts to veer off track, the road always lead home. Take into account that home, in this case, isn’t your everyday, suburban household. Mingus and Richmond have always been on the same page and their shared energy level on Right Now is absolutely crazy! The way they steer their way through Meditation’s first five minutes from the percussive opening driven by Mingus bowed bass, via a barnstorming swing section to a lovely, warm ballad bit, is breathtaking.

And then there’s Jane Getz. No relation to Stan. Not a household name, but a female jazz personality with a peculiar and outstanding career. A child prodigy on piano who’d spent her childhood in Los Angeles, Getz moved to New York when she was 15 and quickly acquainted herself with contemporary leading figures, playing with Pony Pointdexter, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Lloyd, Roland Kirk, Elvin Jones, Stan, yes, Getz, and, eventually, performing with Mingus. Dropping out of the jazz scene when she secured a RCA deal as a session musician and producer in L.A., the seventies and eighties found her working on albums by the likes of John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and The Bee Gees, as well as recording country music as Mother Hen. It was only in the early nineties that she returned to jazz. Getz struck up a fruitful association with saxophonist Dale Fielder (who chronicles the life and career of Getz on his blog here) in 1995, which remains to this day.

Thrown into the barnstorm of a Mingus session at the last minute, with a couple of complex charts in front of her ten fingers and eighty-eight keys, Getz fazes the controlled chaos of Mingus couragiously. Her accompaniment is robust and edgy, she puts in some interesting thematic variations behind the soloists. Her transparant, long lines in Meditation bring to mind the modal moods of mid-sixties McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock. I’m a sucker for the disturbing ‘banging’ sound of piano, bass and drums that signal new sections in New Fables around the third minute that alludes to modern classical composers such as Edgar Varese. Or maybe they were just trying to blow off the Jazz Workshop’s rooftop. At any rate, although I know I have it coming, it keeps shaking my nervous system time and again in a rather mysterious, euphoric manner. Being hurled into the shredder by The Baron. A recognizable feeling for many jazz fans, I’m sure.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Drum Suite (Columbia 1957)

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Who else than the indomitable Art Blakey was qualified to present an African drum extravaganza? Maybe not so shocking today, Drum Suite was a progressive album in the late fifties.

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Personnel

Art Blakey (drums), Jo Jones (drums A1-3), Charles ‘Specs’ Wright (drums, timpani, gong A1-3), Oscar Pettiford (bass, cello A1-3), Candido & Sabu Martinez (bongo A1-3), Ray Bryant (piano A1-3), Sam Dockery (piano B1-3), Jackie McLean (alto saxophone B1-3), Bill Hardman (trumpet B1-3), Spanky DeBrest (bass B1-3)

Recorded

on June 25, 1956 and February 22, 1957 at Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York

Released

as CL1002 in 1957

Track listing

Side A:
The Sacrifice
Cubano Chant
Oscalypso
Side B:
Nica’s Tempo
D’s Dilemma
Just For Marty


The album is made up of two sessions. Side A consists of exotic, Afro-Cuban rhythms and the flipside is a swell session of Blakey’s working band of the period consisting of alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, trumpeter Bill Hardman, pianist Sam Dockery and bassist Spanky DeBrest. The first part (as well as the classy album cover) suggests that Art Blakey was eager to put Africa back into jazz. Yet, in drummer Art Taylor’s book of interviews Notes And Tones, (Da Capo, 1982) Blakey insisted that he has always felt that ‘our music has nothing to do with Africa. (…) No America, no jazz. (…) African music is entirely different, and the Africans are much more advanced than we are rhythmically, though we’re more advanced harmonically.’ In this view, which perhaps unintentionally ignores the impact of both Afro(-Cuban) rhythm and imported European musical standards on the cradle of jazz, New Orleans, Drum Suite isn’t jazz but African music. Or better said, African music played by American men of jazz. But Blakey would know. The Pittsburgh-born drummer traveled in Africa for almost a year in 1949. By his own account, just listening, not drumming.

Tossing two sessions together on an album was a not uncommon practice in the classic jazz era. It could have a number of reasons. Sometimes, studio time ran out. And occasionally, musicians weren’t available anymore due to other obligations. Companies also might go for the easy way (and/or a fast buck), rounding out albums with sessions from the vault. Such albums usually lack coherence, an encompassing idea. Drum Suite is incoherent. But it’s a high quality affair, so who cares?

Beat happening! The Afro-Cuban tunes, wherein Blakey is assisted by drummers Jo Jones and Charles “Specs” Wright, the bongo’s of Candido and Sabu Martinez, bassist Oscar Pettiford and pianist Ray Bryant, sans horns, get you into the groove, no doubt. The aptly-titled The Sacrifice starts off with an indelible African backwoods chant, slowly but surely developing into a multi-layered rumble of toms, flavored with chubby chords and staccato lines by Ray Bryant. The tom-figure from the opening is repeated at the end. Interestingly, it’s reminiscent of the drum part in Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zaratustra, which was used to such imposing effect in Stanley Kubrick’s epic 1968 science-fiction movie 2001 A Space Odyssee.

Ray Bryant will undoubtly have been thrilled by the re-visit of his original tune Cubano Chant. Initially, Bryant had recorded it in 1956 on the Epic LP Ray Bryant Trio, including, coincidentally, Jo Jones and Candido. The broadened palette of instruments results in a piece of tough swing, highlighting Bryant’s inventive left hand, which generally puts emphasis on the low register and down-home fills that reach back to the era of swing, blues and stride. Staccato, swinging right hand lines weave in and out of Bryant’s left hand bottom. Bryant would revisit the uplifting Cubano Chant a number of times during his career. Finally, Oscar Pettiford’s Oscalypso ends the Afro-Cuban side on a groovy note. But three tunes in, the pounding percussion sounds of the basic calypso riff might start to get up one’s sleeve.

Part of an elite jazz family that brought Afro-Cuban music to the jazz realm, including Duke Ellington, Juan Tizol, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Kenny Dorham, the Drum Suite-section is a convincing, spirited affair, and one of the first percussion-oriented jazz album sides. It’s a February 22, 1957 session. Just a while later, Blakey would expand on his percussion fetish on the Blue Note label, releasing Orgy In Rhythm, a date that was recorded in May and October, 1957, as well as Drums Around The Corner and Holiday For Skins in 1958.

Obviously, despite Blakey’s assesment of his own, ‘American’ style, Blakey’s drumming incorporated some African devices, such as the altering of pitch with the elbow, tangible rim shots, and multiple rolls on the toms: an armoury of effects to stimulate the soloists. Some of these assets, embellishing the signature Blakey style of a propulsive beat and thunderous polyrhythm, are present on the other session of Drum Suite, a date of December 13, 1956. They especially fill Bill Hardman’s fast-paced, swinging tune Just For Marty to the brim. It’s a top-rate session with vigorous blowing by Jackie McLean and a number of jubilant, fluent statements by Bill Hardman, an underestimated player with a delicious, sweet-sour tone.

Before Blakey gained widespread recognition with the Blue Note album Moanin’ in 1958, it was hard to make head or tail out of the drummer’s recording career, as Blakey recorded albums for a varying string of labels, including Vik, Jubilee, Bethlehem, Atlantic and Columbia. Yet, however disparate Blakey’s catalogue of that period between the early classic Jazz Messenger sides on Blue Note and successful comeback on the famous label in 1958 may be, it was of a continuous high level. The singular Drum Suite album is no exception.

Ike Quebec Blue & Sentimental (Blue Note 1961)

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Ike Quebec’s resonant, breathy tone, deep as if coming from a velvet cave, is plainly irresistable. It’s in full bloom on Blue & Sentimental, one of Quebec’s 1961 comeback albums on Blue Note, a set of moving ballads and gutsy blues performances.

Ike Quebec - Blue & Sentimental

Personnel

Ike Quebec (tenor saxophone, piano A2, A4), Grant Green (guitar), Sonny Clark (piano B3), Paul Chambers (bass), Sam Jones (bass B3) Philly Joe Jones (drums), Louis Hayes (drums B3)

Recorded

on December 16 & 23, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BLP 4098 in 1962

Track listing

Side A:
Blue And Sentimental
Minor Impulse
Don’t Take Your Love From Me
Blues For Charlie
Like
Count Every Star


Quebec was a veteran of the swing era who recorded with Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Hot Lips Page, Trummy Young, Ella Fitzgerald and Cab Calloway. In the late forties, Quebec recorded for Blue Note while also serving as an arranger and talent scout, stimulating the careers of Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell in the process. Both the decline of big bands and the struggle with a drug addiction kept Quebec under the radar in the fifties. At the end of the decade, Alfred Lion issued a series of Ike Quebec singles for the jukebox market, checking out if Quebec would gain audience attention after years of low visibility. The singles were well-received. Subsequently, the albums that Blue Note released in 1961 and ‘62, Heavy Soul, It Might As Well Be Spring, (with organist Freddie Roach) Blue & Sentimental and Bossa Nova Soul Samba (the latter with Kenny Burrell) were good sellers. Easy Living was released posthumously in 1987. Quebec’s comeback was cut short by lung cancer. He passed away in 1963.

Ike Quebec’s style is accesible but not plain, his sound imposing but not theatrical. A lusty mix of elegant phrasing and a tone with a slight vibrato that switches suavely from breathy whispers to solid honks. Ben Webster-ish, containing that same blend of tenderness and hot swing, with a whiff of romance borrowed from Coleman Hawkins. Do you ever put on Blue & Sentimental on a bright sunny morning? Of course not. It’s a full-blooded after-midnight album. Can’t you see yourself sunk into a battered old chesterfield chair with a 10 year-old single malt and Hajenius cigar in hand? Smoke billows upwards to the ceiling. Ponderings of the incompatible natures of Venus and Mars billow upwards to the ceiling as well, as Quebec delivers an achingly romantic version of Don’t Take Your Love From Me. The demons of a grinding working day and a general mood of nausea are driven out by the lithe, jumpin’ blues of Minor Impulse. Can’t you see? Well, I can. Battered Old Chesterfield is my middle name.

As far as ballads go, they rarely come as smoky as Blue & Sentimental. Quebec’s husky tenor carries the tune, with just the right punch to add steam. Guitarist Grant Green, finishing his first – prolific – year at Blue Note headquarters, is a perfect companion to Quebec’s warm-blooded blowing. Just slightly dragging the beat with his fat-toned, sustained Gibson licks and spicy excursions into bluesland, Green’s balladry is delightful. On the faster tunes, Green’s propulsive lines sparkle. Chambers and Philly Joe Jones also comprise an outstanding match with the veteran tenorist. No need to introduce Mr. PC. From his magnificent, allround package, Chambers chooses tasteful, chubby, blues-drenched notes for the ballads and fat-bottomed, lively walkin’ bass lines for the uptempo tunes. Philly Joe Jones provides sensitive and sprightly support, presenting a bonafide Papa Jo Jones beat in Quebec’s original tune, the lurid cooker Like.

The album ends with Count Every Star, a take from the December 23 session including Green, Sonny Clark, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. Excellent stuff, but one wonders why Alfred Lion thought the inclusion necessary. The CD re-issue (also available on Spotify) reveals a spirited uptempo take of Cole Porter’s That Old Black Magic. Another sparse, piano-less gem that shows the fine rapport between the underrated master of the tenor saxophone and his illustrious supporting crew.