Hank Marr Quartette Live At The Club 502 (King 1964)

Hank Marr’s Live At The Club 502 is as gritty and greasy as live organ music comes. But Marr is also a refined player and his set consists of pleasantly diverse repertoire.

Hank Marr Quartette - Live At The Club 502

Personnel

Hank Marr (organ), Rusty Bryant (tenor, alto saxophone), Wilbert Longmire (guitar), Taylor Orr (drums)

Recorded

in January 1964 at Club 502, Columbus, Ohio

Released

as King 899 in 1964

Track listing

Side A:
Greasy Spoon
One O’Clock Jump
Easy Talk
Freedom March
Side B:
Just Friends
Hank’s Idea
I Remember New York
Up And Down


In the slipstream of organist Jimmy Smith’s popularity in the late fifties, a lot of organ players came up and throughout the sixties the burgeoning organ combo club scene was quite the thing in the USA’s big cities, particularly in the Mid-West. Organ combos, often consisting of only organ and drums, or expanded by a third element of sax or guitar, were cheap for club owners and tended to a black population that favored hot, entertaining music by accomplished players. Though not all organists could handle the big Hammond B3 machine in a viable artistic way, relying instead on cheap tricks and volumes that drowned out both colleagues and audiences. The men (as opposed to these ‘boys’) who further developed the art of B3 after the innovative Jimmy Smith were, among others, Don Patterson, John Patton, Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes, Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack McDuff and Larry Young. Lest we forget, there were also a couple of dames (as opposed to the ‘girls’) who played ball, like Shirley Scott, Trudy Pitts and Gloria Coleman.

Hank Marr, who hailed from Columbus, Ohio, (like Don Patterson) is certainly part of that pack. Not really a pioneer (but who really is, besides Jimmy Smith, Larry Young and the innovator of bass pedal playing, Lou Bennett?) but instead a prototypical ‘burner’: blues oozes out of his pores like raindrops in monsoon season. But at the same time refinement shows up in the guise of an interesting use of the B3’s stops and drawbars, which creates a big ensemble sound and ‘plucky’ and screamin’ lines. No doubt, he’s up there with McGriff and McDuff as the Hammond B3’s prime burners.

Basie classic One O’Clock Jump and Up And Down swing mighty hard, while the catchy Easy Talk has a gentler flow. Marr’s minor hit single Greasy Spoon is a basic blues line, driven by Marr’s warm, atmospheric bass lines and a medium-slow, dragging tempo, decidedly capable of raising the stiffest stiff from the grave. The tension is heightened by Marr’s greasy right-hand lines. Guitarist Wilbert Longmire’s canny blues tune Freedom March includes Marr’s hottest solo. I remember New York showcases fine Marr balladry.

It also includes fine saxophone playing by Rusty Bryant. Bryant, a fellow native from Columbus, Ohio, alternates between alto and tenor saxophone. His alto work is in a ‘cleaner’ yet fiery bag (Just Friends) and his tenor work is more funky and hard-edged. He’d been in Marr’s group for years and they come together very well at the crossroads of blues and modern jazz.

Hank Marr albums are pretty rare and Live At The Club 502 is no exception. No vinyl reissue or remastered CD. Such a shame, Marr’s performance gives us an enlightening and rousing view of organ music in the swinging American sixties.

Hank Marr Sounds From The Marr-Ket Place (King 1964/1967)

I bet ya organist Hank Marr’s incredibly swinging album Sounds From The Marr-Ket Place will prompt even the worst couch potato to clap hands, stamp feet, shake hips, and well… shake everything else it’s got with it. It has not only a contagious, soulful vibe, but is also intriguing for the fact that it marks the recording debut for future avantgardists James ‘Blood’ Ulmer and George Adams.

Hank Marr - Marr-Ket Place

Personnel

Hank Marr (organ), George Adams (tenor saxophone), James ‘Blood’ Ulmer (guitar), poss. Taylor Orr (drums)

Recorded

in 1964

Released

as K5-12-1025 in 1967

Track listing

Side A:
The Marr-Ket Place
Soup Spoon
Smothered Soul
I Remember Acapulco
Greens-A-Go-Go
Side B:
Down In The Bottom
My Dream Just Passed
Home Fries
Come And Get It
Get On Down


Marr had always been ready and able to work up a storm, having released series of meaty r&b-type singles designed for the jukebox market in the late fifties and early sixties. Two of those singles for Syd Nathan’s King label, Greasy Spoon and Silver Spoon, were minor hits. King – and its subsidiary label Federal – included in its roster, among others, James Brown, Hank Ballard, Freddie King and fellow organist Bill Doggett.

A bunch of singles ended up on the compilations Teentime Latest Dance Steps (1963) and Greasy Spoon (1969). Marr’s 1964 live gig in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, Live At Club 502 and Sounds Of The Marr-Ket Place were all-round albums. Marr’s recorded output of albums wasn’t voluminous. Clearly, the livelyhood of musicians like Marr depended very strongly on gigs in Eastern and Mid-Western clubs that tended to the growing audience of organ jazz in the wake of pioneer Jimmy Smith’s popularity. In the eighties, Marr concentrated on teaching and lecturing at Ohio State. Marr recorded three albums in the nineties on the Double Time label, among them Hank And Frank in 1996, with tenorist Frank Foster.

Marr has a blues-drenched style and ‘burns’ like the best of them. But he’s also a refined player with a crafty approach to the Hammond B3’s settings. His solo in The Marr-Ket Place rocks like crazy and is splendidly executed. The tune’s a fast swinger. It’s not the only exciting Marr bit. The album is varied, alternating between uptempo, catchy swingers, boogaloos, slow blues and rumba.

George Adams went on to become one of avantgarde’s most beloved tenor saxophonists from the seventies onwards, at the same time firmly rooted in the blues. He cooperated with Charles Mingus and Gil Evans, but is perhaps best known for his extended work with Don Pullen. His deadpan delivery of quirky blues bits in The Marr-Ket Place and big, smoky sound and honky style which brings to mind both Stanley Turrentine and Willis Jackson in slow blues Soup Spoon are cherries on the album’s top. Same goes for James ‘Blood’ Ulmer, whose 1983 album Odyssee is a vanguard classic. His playing on the album suggests the influence of the era’s soul guitarists and the twangy, biting work of Johnny Guitar Watson. Smothered Soul finds Ulmer also soloing in octaves.

Marr’s marketplace is one rocking joint.

YouTube: Sounds From The Marr-Ket Place