Harold Land Jazz Impressions Of Folk Music (Imperial 1963)

Get acquinted with Jazz Impressions Of Folk Music, the underappreciated gem in the discography of tenor saxophonist Harold Land.

Harold Land - Jazz Impressions Of Folk Music

Personnel

Harold Land (tenor saxophone), Carmell Jones (trumpet), John Houston (piano), Jimmy Bond (bass), Mel Lee (drums)

Recorded

on July 3 & 17 at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles

Released

as Imperial 12247 in 1963

Track listing

Side A:
Tom Dooley
Scarlet Ribbons
Foggy, Foggy Dew
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
Side B:
On Top Of Old Smokey
Take This Hammer
Hava Nagila
Blue Tail Fly


We love Harold Land, one of the finest tenor saxophonists of his generation, who fills the void between Rollins and Mobley. He employs a hard but clean tone and is rarely short on ideas. His fluent playing makes it feel as if the changes do not exist. Taste written all over Mr. Land, who loves chili pepper, goes easy on salt. Land came into his own just before Charlie Parker passed away early in 1955, the era of the burgeoning hard bop style, when the tenorist from Houston, Texas was part of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, partaking in the making of the group’s essential albums. His stint with the challenging, popular outfit sealed Land’s reputation as a major voice on the tenor saxophone.

Land spent a large part of his career on the West Coast, where he recorded the eponymous The Fox with trumpeter Dupree Bolton and pianist Elmo Hope. He enjoyed a fruitful cooperation with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson on a string of Blue Note albums in the late 60s and early 70s. A number of albums by Land, who passed away in 2001, are popular items, particularly West Coast Blues – with guitarist Wes Montgomery – and The Peacemaker.

Jazz Impressions Of Folk Music owns its rightful place in that category. Folk music? Sure, why not. The folk boom was at its height in the mid-sixties, Pete Seeger a working class hero, Seeger’s former copycat Bob Dylan was making a big name for himself, folkies flocked the streets of Greenwich Village. Jazz jumped on the bandwagon. Even big names like Duke Ellington did Blowin’ In The Wind. The great Bud Shank dug in too, on his Folk Flute album, a forgettable commercial affair, by the way. But jazz interpretations of folk tunes weren’t always specifically designed to try to cash in. Sonny Rollins famously posed as an old cowhand and recorded Way Out West in 1957, one of the prime examples of the transformative potential of jazz. A couple of albums that were released during the era of Land’s album were Art Farmer’s To Sweden With Love, Clifford Jordan’s Plays Leadbelly and Shelly Manne’s My Son The Drummer, a set of Jewish and Hebrew songs. Good company.

Land chose a bit of everything, sneaking into the skin of cowboy, Hebrew cat and John Henry. The repertoire consists of Tom Dooley, Scarlet Ribbons, Foggy, Foggy Dew, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, On Top Of Old Smokey, Take This Hammer, Hava Nagila and Blue Tail Fly. It’s consistently excellent. The frontline sparkles with warm unison melodies and spontaneous ad-libs. The underrated Carmell Jones, a trumpeter with a shiny full tone, delicately using slurs and bends, rides on the waves of a solid rhythm trio, that moves with ease and urgent swing and responds merrily to Land and Jones, who secretly pass canned heat to one another in a smoke-filled corner of the saloon. Pianist John Houston adds a number of nimble, lively lines.

The story of Land’s Tom Dooley is a rare thing of beauty. The warmth and fluidity of Land’s playing not only pervades that opening tune, but the entire program of his sincere jazz folk album.

Jazz Impressions Of Folk Music is unfortunately not released on CD or streamed as yet, but it is part of The Mosaic Select set of Carmell Jones. Find (here).

Listen to Kisses Sweeter Than Wine on YouTube (here).

Sonny Criss Jazz U.S.A. (Imperial 1956)

The sessions of Sonny Criss for the Imperial label deserve at least as much attention as his better known Prestige albums of the sixties. They show an alto saxophonist of tremendous power and authority. The uptempo standards on Jazz U.S.A. are particularly overwhelming.

SonnyCriss - JazzUSA

Personnel

Sonny Criss (alto saxophone), Barney Kessel (guitar), Kenny Drew (piano), Bill Woodson (bass), Chuck Thomson (drums)

Recorded

on January 26, February 24 and March 23, 1956 in Los Angeles, California

Released

as Imperial 9006 in 1956

Track listing

Side A
Willow Weep For Me
These Foolish Things
Blue Friday
Sunday
More Than You Know
Easy Living
Side B
Alabamy Bound
Something’s Gotta Give
West Coast Blues
Criss-Cross
Ham’s Blues
Sweet Georgia Brown


Sonny Criss was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1927 and relocated to Los Angeles at the age of fifteen. Arguably, the bebop virtuoso’s stay on the West Coast in favor of jazz mecca New York hindered his career. Occasionally, Criss played in Paris, to much acclaim, and cogniscenti and colleagues knew where Criss was at. He took to bebop as early as 1947, playing with Howard McGhee, Wardell Gray and Charlie Parker. Touring with Norman Granz’ Jazz At The Philharmonic brought Criss wider recognition in the California area. In 1955, Criss joined the group of drummer/bandleader Buddy Rich. The three albums that Criss recorded for Imperial in 1956, Jazz U.S.A., Go Man! and Plays Cole Porter (the latter two including Sonny Clark) were first class. But it was an ill-fated cooperation. Imperial was an r&b and country label that released, among others, New Orleans r&b artists Fats Domino, Irma Thomas and Smiley Lewis, and country singers like Slim Whitman. Obviously, jazz promotion wasn’t high on their to-do list.

The Prestige albums of the late sixties found Criss laying a thick layer of hard (driving) bop on standards, blues and pop hits of the day. Criss also recorded a couple of solid albums for Muse and Impulse in the mid-seventies. Tragically, in 1977, Sonny Criss committed suicide at the age of 50. The reasons for Criss’ fatal self-infliction by a gunshot remained a mystery for years, until jazz historian Ted Gioia contacted his mother, who revealed that the suffering of stomach cancer had become unbearable for Criss.

Criss modelled himself after Charlie Parker (better said, had the chops to model himself after Bird), but developed an unquestionable personal style. The tone of Criss has a compelling vibrato, in contrast to Bird’s more stripped-down sound. Like Parker, Criss is a virtuoso who doesn’t let his technical prowess overrule the message of his music. He’s got an alluring romantic streak in his playing. Precise, driving phrasing, abundant blues feeling and a cocksure beat are striking aspects of his style.

Criss tears apart standards with deceptive ease. He plunges himself headlong in the uptempo, swing warhorse Sweet Georgia Brown, topping off ear-catching, punchy lines with salient articulation. Kenny Dorham’s Blue Friday has a swing feeling, contrasted by Criss’ agile, multi-note phrases that he brings about with the finesse of a boxer that stings like a bee and dances like a fly. It’s not brute force that drives you into the corner, but a series of dazzling stabs that leaves one breathless, amazed, admiring.

The group, including an elegantly comping Kenny Drew, rises to the occasion on these uptempo tunes. The mid-tempo tunes are more commonplace, certainly as far as the rhythm section is concerned. The combination of Criss and Barney Kessel leads to the album’s (uptempo) highlights, like Sunday, the before-mentioned Sweet Georgia Brown and Criss original Criss-Cross. And Criss and Kessel deliver a flawless unisono theme of Alabamy Bound at breakneck speed, with Kessel lowering an octave at the tag. Kessel’s solo is fleet and vigorating, bebop-swing in full flight.

The medium tempo West Coast Blues, a Sonny Criss tune (not to be confused with Wes Montgomery’s tune), is distinctive for the vigorous embellishment of Criss of a generic 12 bar blues pattern. The ballad These Foolish Things has been played to the bone. Criss skilfully embellishes it with twisty-turny phrases, snake-charming the melody with a blend of skill and infectious energy that still inspires awe after all these years.