Jimmy Forrest

Oliver Nelson, King Curtis & Jimmy Forrest - Soul Battle

Oliver Nelson, King Curtis & Jimmy Forrest Soul Battle (Prestige 1960)

- Francois Leave a comment

Oliver Nelson had a knack for interesting parings of horns and Soul Battle is a seriously entertaining combination of the differing tenor styles of Nelson, Jimmy Forrest and King Curtis.

Oliver Nelson, King Curtis & Jimmy Forrest - Soul Battle

Personnel

Oliver Nelson (tenor saxophone), Jimmy Forrest (tenor saxophone), King Curtis (tenor saxophone), Gene Casey (piano), George Duvivier (bass), Roy Haynes (drums)

Recorded

on September 8, 1960 at Rudy van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as PRLP 7223 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
Blues At The Five Spot
Blues For M.F. (Mort Fega)
Anacruses
Side B:
Perdido
In Passing


It is easy to overlook the beauty of a saxophonist’s voice and hi-level playing style when the player in question is also known, perhaps better-known, through his exceptional work as a writer and arranger. Benny Golson is a case in point. Oliver Nelson certainly qualifies. Evidently, he was a renowned arranger of his own work but mostly of other artists like Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith. His body of work as a writer is comprehensive and filled with gems, the achingly beautiful Stolen Moments serving as his undisputed masterpiece.

Obviously, Blues And The Abstract Truth, his album on Impulse from 1960 which included Stolen Moments and featured Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard and Roy Haynes, is a stone-cold classic and a perennial favorite among teachers at conservatories around the world. Standard subject matter. Straight Ahead isn’t such an indelible part of the curriculum, undeservedly. It’s an essential date on par with Abstract. Strikingly, Nelson’s Prestige albums of this period, which began in 1959 with Meet Oliver Nelson, consist of a thoroughly convincing effort to interpret the blues. Oh boy, his gelling with Dolphy – Dolphy playing Charlie Parker backwards, flying out there, Nelson more modern in the conventional sense, plaintive yet forceful – is truly something else.

Soul Battle precedes Blues And The Abstract Truth and Straight Ahead, which were recorded in the winter of 1961. If the latter albums are blues-based recording sessions that are simultaneously spontaneous and proof of careful preparation, Soul Battle is best described as a relaxed but driving, good-old blowing session. Count your blessings, this is a tenor battle royale! We have Nelson, employing a tone that often touches the alto register, on the hunt for ideas all the time, finding them too, carefully placing them in orderly fashion yet eager to move on, light-footed like a deer in the wild…

Then there’s Jimmy Forrest. Forrest goes way back, played on the riverboats of Mississippi with Fate Marable, with Duke Ellington, became an overnight r&b one-day-fly with Night Train in 1952 (a tune that was based on Duke Ellington’s Happy-Go-Lucky-Local), played with St. Louis pals Miles Davis and Grant Green and spent a big part of the seventies in the band of Count Basie. He’s putting some serious jazz history in a session like this. Take a listen to Blues For M.F., an excellent jump blues that has Nelson taking first solo, expertly so. Then Forrest hits four B.I.G. archetypal notes straight from Coleman Hawkins and suddenly Roy Haynes falls into a pocket… and an even deeper groove that was already developed is a fact… We have King Curtis, the r&b-star. However, lest we forget, King Curtis was a solid jazz player. His hard-edged tone, sleazy phrasing and fervent wails present a nice contrast with Nelson and Forrest’s subsequent modern and rootsy concepts.

Nelson’s story of Anacuses, one of four Nelson originals on Soul Battle – Juan Tizol’s Perdido the exception – has the passion and intensity of Coltrane, the hard-boiled flexibility of Joe Henderson and the direct emotional impact of Booker Ervin. Take that! A thorough dive into Oliver Nelson’s discography will find many exceptional moments, he’s truly one of the greatest saxophonists of his generation.

MRL 315 front

Blue Mitchell Blue Mitchell (Mainstream 1971)

- Francois 2 Comments

In 1970 Blue Mitchell was a trumpeter in the Ray Charles Orchestra. Nothwithstanding the fact that playing with the man who was respected among musicians in the sixties for reminding them of the roots of jazz was a valuable experience, it was a decision primarily driven by financial needs. Who could blame him? Jazz life was (is) a scuffle. In the early to mid-seventies Mitchell would continue commercial endeavors, working with the father of British blues, John Mayall, while simultaneously record for the Mainstream label. Blue Mitchell (in popular language also known as Soul Village but not catalogued as such) is his debut on Mainstream. It’s one of the better releases in Mainstream’s book, as Mitchell keeps up the energy of his career-high Riverside and Blue Note recordings of the early and mid-sixties, while adapting adequately to early seventies production methods.

MRL 315 front

Personnel

Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Jimmy Forrest (tenor sax), Walter Bishop Jr. (piano, electric piano), Larry Gales (bass), Doug Sides (drums)

Recorded

March 1971 in NYC

Released

as MRL 315 in 1971

Track listing

Side A:
Soul Village
Blues For Thelma
Queen Bee
Side B:
Are You Real
Mi Hermano


The danceable quality of Blue Mitchell is immediately apparent. Three-fifth of the repertoire is reserved for tunes that are influenced by Carribean and West-Indian rhythm. Mi Hermano, Queen Bee and Benny Golson’s Are You Real are contagious songs with big-sounding two-horn themes, in which Mitchell displays his abundant style and round tone, employing a wide spectrum of notes. By concentrating on exotic styles, Mitchell emphasizes and stays true to the lineage of Carribean influence on jazz that took off through the innovations of the bebop clique of the fourties. Mitchell feels at home in these surroundings and had recorded these types of compositions before. Fungii Mama (from The Thing To Do) is a swinging and succesful case in point.

The order of soloing is the same on all five tunes: Mitchell first, then Forrest and Walter Bishop Jr. The styles of Mitchell and Forrest blend well with one another; they’re both very lively, yet Forrest’s style is rougher and drenched in swing, as Mitchell’s style is a fair mix of bop and blues. The entrance of veteran Jimmy Forrest in Mi Hermano, who, curiously, had to be pulled out of retirement for the job in Mitchell’s group, is a real kick in the gut. Soul Village and Blues For Thelma are dynamic hard bop compositions; tension-building figures in the former’s theme and a groovy, walking bass figure in the latter’s theme give these tunes an edge. They stimulate the soloists to express themselves eloquently.

Essentially, Blue Mitchell is a hard bop recording dressed up for a new age. The sound of drums, electric bass and, occasionally, electric piano, is early seventies, but thematically Blue Mitchell belongs to the era in which the trumpeter shone brightly on many a fine session. One must admit that the alternative title of Soul Village isn’t such a bad choice after all.

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Jimmy Forrest All The Gin Is Gone (Delmark 1959)

- Francois Leave a comment

East St. Louis in the forties and fifties was a town where night crawlers usually ended up after bars closed across the river in St. Louis. It was devoid of closing hours, rowdy and in possession of an inordinate amount of clubs that, logically, presented live music. R&B in particular, East St. Louis wasn’t necessarily a jazz place, but big names regularly came and went. Duke Ellington, as we know, wrote a frolic piece about it called East St. Louis Toodle-oo.

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Personnel

Jimmy Forrest (tenor sax), Grant Green (guitar), Harold Mabern (piano), Gene Ramey (bass), Elvin Jones (drums)

Recorded

on December 10, 1959 in Hall Studios, Chicago

Released

as DL-404 in 1963

Track listing

Side A:
All The Gin Is Gone
Laura
Myra
Side B:
Caravan
What’s New
Sunkenfoal


It was there that Jimmy Forrest, Grant Green and Elvin Jones met in the mid-fifties. By the way, Forrest and Green shared more than friendship and musical taste. To paraphrase Lou Reed, they were regularly waiting for the man with 26 dollars in their hands. Now I’m not saying their camaraderie is the reason their Delmark endeavor may be judged favorably. First and foremost, All The Gin Is Gone is worth a good listen because these men eloquently bring forth a be-boppin’, uptempo blues. This is not the world of decanters and double-breasted tweed, but that of moonshine spilled on woodboard floors that have more holes than Swiss cheese.

Jimmy Forrest had a wonderful career that goes way back; played with Fate Marable, Ellington, Miles Davis, was a sought-after freelancer and, eventually, spent a big part of the seventies in Count Basie’s front line. Forrest did duty on the r&b train and is remembered for 1952 smash hit Night Train. It should be no surprise that a pro like Forrest pulls of ballad What’s New in such a lyrical and in-your-face manner as to leave the ghost of Don Byas breathless. But it was.

The band swings comfortably and effortlessly. Forrest has a gutsy sound and his play is stirred up by Elvin Jones; never shy with raucous fills and cymbal clashes, Jones nevertheless demonstrates an uncanny ability to swing lightly on Laura. December 10, 1959 marks Grant Green’s first recording date. It’s pretty remarkable to witness that Green’s singular style was already in tact.