Curtis Amy & Frank Butler Groovin’ Blue (Pacific Jazz 1961)

While writer Charles Bukowski played the piano drunk as a percussion instrument until his fingers began to bleed a bit in East Hollywood, two hardboiled jazz men blew the roof of a studio a mile or so further down the boulevards of broken dreams.

Curtis Amy & Frank Butler - Groovin' Blue

Personnel

Curtis Amy (tenor saxophone), Carmell Jones (trumpet), Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone), Frank Strazzeri (piano), Jimmy Bond (bass), Frank Butler (drums)

Recorded

on December 10, 1960 at Pacific Jazz Studio, Los Angeles

Released

as PJ-19 in 1961

Track listing

Side A:
Gone Into It
Annsome
Bobblin’
Side B:
Groovin’ Blue
Beautiful You
Very Frank


It isn’t all light-footed and laid-back jazz what the clock struck on the West Coast. Yes, there was a sunny and breezy and carefully pre-cooked Californian phenomenon that came to be known as West Coast Jazz. But there had been similar tightly arranged chamber jazz endeavors on the East Coast. And hadn’t Los Angeles itself churned out its share of groove and grease normally associated with the Mid-West and East? Les McCann was an incredibly popular Calif-based gospel-infused burner. A lesser-known hard swinger is tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy.

As a matter of fact, strictly defined, the Houston, Texas-born Amy (1925) is West nor East but a Texas tenor-inspired blower. His is a style that punches faces with strong fists and tattooed knuckles. His sound is solid and meaty, like a spicy stew of chili beans and pork ribs. He’s a modern cat that is drenched in blues and the booming licks of the likes of Illinois Jacquet. Lone Star swagger.

Intermittently residing in Tennessee, Amy reached Los Angeles in the late 1950’s. He recorded for Pacific Jazz, a strong series of records that featured organist Paul Bryant, valve trombonist Roy Brewster, bassist Clarence Jones, drummer Johnny Miller, pianist Victor Feldman and vibraphonists Bobby Hutcherson and Roy Ayers. When the name of unsung hero Amy crops up nowadays, it’s usually through Katanga, Amy’s hard bop gem from 1963 that was generally neglected during his lifetime but enjoyed a high-profile Tone Poet reissue in 2021. Katanga featured the enigmatic and brilliant trumpeter Dupree Bolton.

His mate on Groovin’ Blue is drummer Frank Butler. The Kansas, Missouri-born Butler also was not of the ‘lite’ variety but a heavy calorie modernist and drummer of choice for Curtis Counce, Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes and Elmo Hope. Anybody familiar with Harold Land’s furious The Fox knows what unsung hero #2, Frank Butler, is about.

They are groovin’ blue with trumpeter Carmell Jones, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Frank Strazzeri and bassist Jimmy Bond. Groovin’ Blue flows nice ‘n’ easy and gritty ‘n’ greasy and fast ‘n’ furious from start to finish, the start being Amy’s blues swinger par excellence Gone Into It, the finish consisting of the tenorist’s Very Frank, a boppish explosion that builds on a Frank Butler drum intermezzo.

This set of Amy tunes includes the mid-tempo blues groove of Groovin’ Blue, which is right up the alley of Curtis Amy, a sort of Stanley Turrentine with a harder and more edgy sound if you will. Butler is a propulsive and sizzling force and graces Annsome with a short but sweet solo, all meaningful simplicity and built on a march figure, as if he’s a drummer kid in the second line. Everything he plays is sassy and oozes fun. Beautiful You is a ballad that revolves around a story by Bobby Hutcherson, which certainly deserves the adjective of beautiful. The most original tune is Bobbin’ and juxtaposes waltz with 4/4 groove and features fine solo’s by Jones, Amy, Hutcherson and Strazzeri.

That’s tenor, trumpet, vibes and piano, which makes up for a sparkling sound palette, one more reason to get Groovin’ Blue while you can.

Harold Land The Fox (HiFi Jazz 1960)

Hold on tight when the fox is loose! The Fox, tenorist Harold Land’s greatest solo album, contains a title track that in my opinion is one of the all-time classic hard bop cuts. The rest of the album is filled with fine originals mainly written by pianist Elmo Hope. It’s also memorable for the appearance of trumpet enigma Dupree Bolton.

Harold Land Quintet - The Fox

Personnel

Harold Land (tenor saxophone), Dupree Bolton (trumpet), Elmo Hope (piano), Herbie Lewis (bass), Frank Butler (drums)

Recorded

on August 1959 at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles

Released

as HiFi Jazz SJ-612 in 1960 and Contemporary S7619 in 1969

Track listing

Side A:
The Fox
Mirror-Mind Rose
One Second, Please
Side B:
Sims-A-Plenty
Little Chris
One Down


Land moved to Los Angeles in 1955 because of illness in his family, cutting short his engagement with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quartet. (Sonny Rollins took his place) When Elmo Hope left NYC for the West Coast after losing his cabaret card due to a drug bust, the bop piano wizard soon checked out Land. Planning a recording and in search of a trumpeter, they were adviced the unknown Dupree Bolton. A great pick, as Bolton surprised everyone with quicksilver phrasing and a fiery, cocksure tone. He also turned out to be a smart reader of Hope and Land’s deceptively straighforward tunes.

The driving rhythm section also handles the pretty and characteristic changes of the composers Hope and Land very well. They kickstart the title track, written by Harold Land, at breakneck speed, pushed along by a string of boisterous, descending runs from Elmo Hope. Harold Land delivers a fluent, crackerjack solo. Dupree Bolton is in staccato mood. His blend of virtuosity and buoyancy is on par with Clifford Brown. Elmo Hope’s solo is stunning. He’s ‘out there’ and makes intelligent use of dynamics, alternating between soft/hard and low/high, yet his brainy statements never lose the sense of harmonic stability. The horn bits behind Hope stimulate his proceedings considerably near the end. The Fox is a very tricky tune and the way the group succeeds at letting it flow unaffectedly is fantastic.

Hope’s Mirror-Mind Rose (Hope contributes four tunes to The Fox, Land two) is an exquisite, warm-hearted ballad. Land’s tone can be both pleasantly round and sweet-tart and his sound is forceful without excessive strain. Hope’s impressionistic solo is pure comfort, evokes the image of a warm glow that embraces you in front of the fireplace. It has tinges of both Monk and Bill Evans.

Another Hope tune, the uptempo One Second, Please, evolves from a Night In Tunesia-type intro into a nice, long flowing theme. Harold Land’s tale is relaxed but strong and reveals a special feeling for melody. Dupree Bolton’s statements are out of sight. The Fox turned out to be the prime studio achievement of one of jazz’ most obscure top-notch cats; nobody knew where he came from and nobody knew what happened to him afterwards. Bolton’s only other recording is Curtis Amy’s Katanga! (1963)

Both Sims A-Plenty and Little Chris are uptempo, intriguing tunes that possess a good sense of groove. Harold Land’s ability to construct series of coherent, rich ideas catches the ear in particular in Sims A-Plenty. His approach is simultaneously cerebral and temperamental and strikes me as similar to the style of Benny Golson. Hope is outstanding, injecting ‘trinkle tinkles’ and Middle-Eastern accents into swift changes. Bolton’s flair, meanwhile, is highly contagious.

The album is rounded off with the latin-type composition One Down. It’s a solid ending of a session of great teamwork, remarkable performances of leader Land and virtual co-leader Hope and, last but not least, the rabbit that was pulled out of the hat, Dupree Bolton.