Buddy Terry Natural Soul Natural Woman (Prestige 1968)

For Buddy Terry, natural soul is the music of the church, the street and John Coltrane.

Buddy Terry - Natural Soul Natural Woman

Personnel

Buddy Terry (tenor saxophone, flute), Joe Thomas (tenor saxophone, flute), Robbie Porter (baritone saxophone), Woody Shaw (trumpet, flugelhorn), Larry Young (organ), Jiggs Chase (organ), Wally Richardson (guitar), Jimmy Lewis (Fender bass), Eddie Gladden (drums), the Terry Girls (vocals)

Recorded

on November 15, 1967 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as PRLP 7541 in 1968

Track listing

Side A:
Natural Woman
Natural Soul (Sunday Go To Meetin’ Blues)
Pedro, The One Arm Bandit
Don’t Be So Mean
Side B:
The Revealing Time
Quiet Days And Lonely Nights


The legendary Prestige label had added soul jazz to its cutting-edge modern jazz catalogue in the early sixties. In fact, by putting numerous hi-profile advertisements of their stock in magazines like Downbeat, continuously stressing the ‘soul’ of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Shirley Scott, Jimmy Forrest, Groove Holmes, Gene Ammons and many others, it was a deciding factor in the invention and popularization of soul jazz. By the late 60s, when interest in mainstream jazz dwindled, Prestige focused on funky, bluesy jazz in sync with contemporary popular music and its buying public. So you’d get the barroom organ blues of Sonny Philips or the mean, greasy tenor of Houston Person, who scored one of the last Prestige hits with Jamilah. And Prestige had signed tenor saxophonist Buddy Terry, who’d assisted organist Freddie Roach on Soul Book in 1966. Terry released his debut album as a leader, Electric Soul in 1968. You mean like, soul? In the late sixties, label boss and artists of Prestige still didn’t have to think twice about picking titles.

Buddy Terry had played in the organ groups of Rhoda Scott, Dee Dee Ford, Dayton Shelby and Larry Young and cooperated with Sonny Rollins and Johnny Coles. A couple of years were spent in the band of Lionel Hampton. For Natural Soul Natural Woman, the tough tenor with a ‘far out’ edge assembled his Newark, New Jersey pals – pleasant surprise! – Larry Young, Woody Shaw and Eddie Gladden, weathered cats like tenorist and flutist Joe Thomas, as well as the so-called Terry Girls on vocals – perhaps including the beautiful lady on the front cover? So then you get Don’t Be So Mean, a lurid boogaloo tune with a tacky twist, absolutely the album’s highlight. You get Pedro, The One Arm Bandit, obscure folk music jazzed up upliftingly, following the path Rollins famously paved.

You get Natural Woman, Aretha Franklin’s anthemic soul ballad, that features the Terry Girls and Buddy Terry hollering mercy, mercy; Quiet Days And Lonely Nights, a solid ballad. And finally, The Revealing Time, a mid-tempo blues that passes the 11-minute mark, ample opportunity to stretch out for Terry and Young. Woody Shaw only has short bits of solo space. Honestly, the brilliant, last great innovator of the trumpet’s worthwhile statements are overshadowed by rather lackluster, staccato ad-libs. Sleepy, perhaps.

Buddy Terry, on the other hand, is spry as the cow that line-dances onto the field in Spring. He’s a minister arousing the flock. And a captain of the Enterprise reaching out to the aliens around the Ring of Saturn. His dirty playing style and harmonic sophistication brings to mind Eddie Harris. Buddy Terry took matters in his own hands and also provided the liner notes to his album of raucous soul jazz. A curious mix of bio and exegesis. Terry states: “The entire album is my song of praise to God.”

Hallelujah time well-spent.

Freddie Roach The Soul Book (Prestige 1966)

Spacious. Avatara. Sounds pretty esoteric to me for a jazz organist, I remember thinking when I found a library cd of Freddie Roach’s The Soul Book light years ago. Fast forward to the present and here I sit with the original LP in hand. Quaint front cover. Roach sports a Zen-masterly grin and looks us in the eyes slightly mischievous. A modern-day Socrates? In any case, a man with a philosophical bend.

Freddie Roach - The Soul Book

Personnel

Freddie Roach (organ), Buddy Terry (tenor saxophone A1-A3, B1, B3), Vinnie Corrao (guitar A1-A3, B1, B3), Skeeter Best (guitar B2) Jackie Mills (drums A1-A3, B1, B3), Ray Lucas (drums B2), King Erisson (conga B2)

Recorded

on June 13 & 28 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as PRLP 7490 in 1966

Track listing

Side A:
Spacious
Avatara
Tenderley
Side B:
One Track Mind
You’ve Got Your Troubles
The Bees


Reading Roach’s narrative on ‘soul’ on the back cover, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Freddie Roach, alledgedly, also was a playwright and actor. Roach’s musical style certainly suggests a lot of thought behind his notes and tones of modern organ jazz.

Roach stepped into the limelight when tenor saxophonist and Blue Note A&R man Ike Quebec hired him for Quebec’s albums Heavy Soul and It Might As Well Be Spring in 1961. Solo albums followed on Blue Note, of which 1963’s Mo’ Greens Please featuring Kenny Burrell was particularly succesful. Roach showcased a laid-back, tasteful style and touch. In the mid/late sixties, Roach progressively brought to the fore his inherently groovy style.

The Soul Book, the first album of Roach on Prestige after his Blue Note period, includes a good example of Roach’s funky intentions: One Track Mind, a typical mid-sixties affair, a gritty boogaloo. Roach cooks and tenor saxophonist Buddy Terry mixes a charming swing feel with some tough Johnny Griffin-style tenor. The ballad Tenderly gets an heated midtempo treatment.

Black sheep in Roach’s soulful herd is pop tune You’ve Got Your Troubles. It’s taken from another session with a different line up including conga player King Erisson. It’s a generic calypso version. The Bees, the closer of the album, is better. The quirky blues theme is bound to put a smile on your face and the uptempo shuffle inspires guitarist Vinnie Corrao (who played with organist Don Patterson before hooking up with Freddie Roach) to deliver hot and articulate phrases and Freddie Roach to build a splendid tale that goes from quiet swing to fire alarm.

Spacious and Avatara, however, are the album’s highlights. Avatara is a bittersweet, moody piece which, Roach explains, ‘is the wedding of cosmic and conventional, (…) the background music from a dream I once had.’ Buddy Terry shows great command of the tenor, conjuring velvet pleasantries and haunting, whispering, yearning sighs and squaks. I would like to hum the tune to my kid daughter at least twice a day while smothering her with hugs and kisses. I should. If only she wouldn’t prefer girl groups to jazz and hate the touch of my prickly beard. Hey baby, I’ve been sporting this stubble face ever since I got out of high school, be glad I don’t wear one of those hip Santa Claus affairs.

The mid-tempo Spacious is my favorite track. It’s one of those compositions that combine relaxed swing with an elaborate outlay, like Eddie Harris’ version of Ernest Gold’s Theme From Exodus, also a tune that remains glued to your mind forever. It’s a free-flowing tune with an infectious, ephemeral theme. Exuding a vibe that makes you warm although you’re out standing in the cold. Roach develops a solo that excludes well-worn gimmicks but instead piles articulate phrase upon phrase like a toddler stacks Lego cubes. A search for new vistas.

Intriguing, to say the least.