Julian Priester

Julian Priester Keep Swinging (Jazzland 1960)

- Francois 1 Comment

No either/or for trombonist Julian Priester, who switches smoothly from avant-garde and fusion to hard bop, and back. His 1960 debut album on Riverside, Keep Swingin’, fits neatly in the latter category.

Julian Priester - Keep Swinging

Personnel

Julian Priester (trombone), Jimmy Heath (tenor saxophone), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Sam Jones (bass), Elvin Jones (drums)

Recorded

on January 11, 1960 at Plaza Sound Studio, New York City

Released

as RLP 12-316 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
24-hour leave
The End
1239A
Just Friends
Side B:
Bob T’s Blues
Under The Surface
Once In A While
Julian’s Tune


Here’s an open-minded gentleman who isn’t satisfied to keep playing in the same bag for the rest of his days. In high demand by stalwarts of modern jazz, Priester played and recorded with Max Roach, Art Blakey, Johnny Griffin, Blue Mitchell, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Clifford Jordan, Stanley Turrentine and McCoy Tyner. Then too he was part of Sun Ra’s orchestra on and off from 1956 to 1995. In the early 70s, Priester held the trombone chair in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. One year – 1969 – Priester was featured on organist Lonnie Smith’s The Turning Point, the other – 1970 – he joined the experimental Mwhandishi band of Herbie Hancock for three years. Priester cooperated with Charlie Haden, Eddie Henderson, Dave Holland and Anthony Braxton. Yet, his teenage years in Chicago, where Priester was born in 1935, were spent on stage with blues and r&b legends as Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. Well, avant-garde doesn’t mean anything if it at least has a semblance of the roots, right? Right. Discussion forum’s open. Draft or bottle?

One can imagine what attracted Duke Ellington to Julian Priester. Priester is skilled in the modern approach of pioneer J.J. Johnson, not a specialist of certain techniques like the earlier Ellington trombonists, but his sound is tart and joyful. His fluent lines have sustained swing and his phrases have built-in blues feeling. In 1960, while he was part of Max Roach’s group, Priester set himself in the limelight with two releases. Generally, Spiritsville is the album that gets the attention on the world wide jazz web. It’s a fine album that boasts the challenging tune Excursion and a great ballad reading by Priester of It Might As Well Be Spring. However, it’s weird that Keep Swingin’ is largely ignored.

There’s swing and then there’s swing. Spiritsville, with McCoy Tyner, Sam Jones and Art Taylor in tow, has no lack of it. Yet I feel that, somehow, the juices aren’t really flowing, the spirit is held in check by God knows what. Something between the devil and the deep blue Hudson River. Keep Swingin’ may not be a classic session, but it has the edge on Spiritsville.

The line-up includes tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath, pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Sam Jones and drummer Elvin Jones. The stars stood in the right spot, the time was right, the guys were in sync, in a happy mood, comfortable. The Detroit cats, Elvin Jones and Tommy Flanagan, were cracking jokes, is what one is liable to imagine. Because the mood is right. The session is relaxed yet urgent. There are a number of blues-based tunes like Heath’s 24-Hour Leave, Priester’s Bob T’s Blues, bop-inflected tunes like Priester’s The End, Under The Surface, Charles Davis’ 1239A, the standard Just Friends and the Edwards/Greene ballad Once In A While. Bob T’s Blues is a low-down mean slow blues.

Priester’s in-your-face handling of the Just Friends melody after the solos, coupled with his booming sound, is a gas. Jimmy Heath is fiery and gutsy. Flanagan is sprightly as spring water. His lines, full of ideas, move so effortlessly! Sam Jones and Elvin Jones are tight-knit and greasy, Elvin Jones is on top, teasing Sam like (although they’re not related) the older brother throwing curve balls to the kid brother with a bat that’s too big for comfort. They’re like a steam locomotive that, if asked for, could keep running from here to eternity, and back. Priester is at the wheel, smiling.

Julian Priester lives in New York City, where he plays and teaches.

Listen to Keep Swinging’ and Spiritsville back to back on Spotify below.

Harold Ousley Tenor Sax (Bethlehem 1960)

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Tenor saxophonist Harold Ousley combined relaxed, flowing, bluesy lines with a rich, resonant sound. Tenor Sax is his only album as a leader in the sixties.

Harold Ousley - Tenor Sax

Personnel

Harold Ousley (tenor sax), Charles Davis (baritone sax), Julian Priester (trombone), Philip Wright (piano), Thomas Williams (bass), Walter Perkins (drums)

Recorded

in 1960 in NYC

Released

as Bethlehem 6059 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
Paris Sunday
Devachan
At Last
Lush Life
Side B:
Struttin’ To Truckin’
Dell-A-Vonn
Porter’s Groove


Ousley died of unknown causes last year, on August 13, 2015. Born in Chicago, Ousley turned professional in the late fourties, working in circus bands. In the fifties and sixties, Ousley played with Gene Ammons, Billy Holiday, Howard McGhee, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Dinah Washington and organist Jack McDuff. With the reign of fusion and rock in the early seventies, work for tenor saxophonists like Ousley had become quite scarce. Ousley nevertheless held chairs in the big bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, while recording a few albums as a leader of jazzfunk ensembles. Ousley continued working in r&b and blues for the rest of his career, playing with Big Maybelle, Ruth Brown, Percy Mayfield, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon and organist Bill Doggett.

Ousley also teached jazz programs in schools and developed a method of ‘music as therapy’. Alledgedly, Ousley appeared in the (depending on your taste, silly or wryly funny) blaxploitation movie Cotton Comes To Harlem in 1970. But Ousley is difficult to detect. Not to say, impossible. He isn’t credited. I’m beginning to suspect that the journalists who reported Ousley’s supporting role in their eulogies of Ousley last summer have been putting on the Flophouse Floor Manager. (So if you’ve watched the movie and have found the appearance of Ousley, please report and bust this utterly important jazz myth…)

More work in showbiz followed, as Ousley hosted a cable tv show in the early nineties, Harold Ousley Presents, joining the ranks of fellow musicians Johnny Cash, Tom Jones and Ernest Tubb, who all hosted shows at one time or another in their careers.

I’m really fond of Ousley’s marshmellow sound. He’s a gentle player with sly humour, who stays in the middle register for most of the time and favors a slightly dragging beat. Ousley is comfortable with rapid, multi-note lines as well. Of his scarce work as a recording sideman, his appearance on drummer Grassella Oliphant’s The Grass Roots (Atlantic 1965) is easily his best, a successful symbiosis of sound and style. He also contributed five tunes for that album, among them Haitian Lady and One For The Masses, which Ousley would re-visit later on; the contagious, bossa-fied hard bop tune Haitian Lady would appear on Brother Jack McDuff’s Walk On By (Prestige 1966). (Ousley contributed three tunes to that album and played on a number of McDuff sessions for Prestige, probably as a sub for Red Holloway) One For The Masses returned on both Ousley’s jazzfunk albums from 1972, The Kid and Sweet Double Hipness.

Ousley’s elegant, lush playing style is already present on Tenor Sax. His tenor mixes nicely with the other two reed instruments, resulting in a warm, full-bodied group sound. The rhythm section keeps a good groove. But they are playing it pretty safe, accenting the basic formula of theme-solo’s-theme as if they’re fresh out of music college, careful not to step on anyone’s toes.

Priester, one of the most promising trombonists at that time in his career, is swift and imposing. Charles Davis speaks huskily, eloquently. Surprise lurks around the corners of Ousley’s lines, and he embellishes the mid-and uptempo tunes with patiently executed, bluesy phrases. Those attractive mid-and uptempo tunes, like Paris Sunday, are set opposite a most satisfactory, intimate, breathy version of the classic ballad Lush Life.

Nice tenor work. It’s quite incomprehensible that it took the tenor saxophonist twelve years to follow up Tenor Sax with another album under his own name.

Johnny Griffin Orchestra The Big Soul-Band (Riverside 1960)

- Francois 2 Comments

A look at Johnny Griffin’s side dates around the time of The Big Soul-Band’s release in 1960 shows he was a very sought-after player. No wonder, because the ‘Little Giant’ decidedly had his chops together, playing masterfully executed fast runs, all the while retaining a heartfelt sense of the blues. Cooperation with Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Clark Terry and John Coltrane, and solo endeavors on the Blue Note and Riverside label resulted in very positive critical acclaim. Thus, by the time the idea of putting out a record of grass roots jazz took fruition, Griffin was ready for it.

Johnny Griffin - The Big Soul-Band

Personnel

Johnny Griffin (tenor saxophone), Harold Mabern (piano), Bobby Timmons (piano), Clark Terry (trumpet), Bobby Bryant (trumpet), Charles Davis (baritone saxophone), Edwin Williams (tenor saxophone), Julian Priester (trombone), Matthew Gee (trombone), Pat Patrick (alto saxophone), Frank Strozier (alto saxophone), Bob Cranshaw (bass), Victor Sproles (bass), Charlie Persip (drums), Norman Simmons (arranger)

Recorded

on May 24 & 31 and June 3, 1960 in NYC

Released

as RLP 331 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
Side A:
Wade In The Water
Panic Room Blues
Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen
Meditation
Side B:
Holla
So Tired
Deep River
Jubilation


And forget the concept. There was one, but its execution is wholly unforced. The album kicks off with a sweeping version of Wade In The Water. The pace of the album is set: a solid rythym section of drummer Charlie Persip and either bassist Vic Sproles or Bob Cranshaw, who spend much of their time in the A and E strings, therefore adding a definite down-home feeling, supports a brass and reed section that would please both Oliver Nelson and Count Basie. Griffin’s tenor beautifully weaves in and out of that big sound with sudden bebop stabs and lenghty gospel shouts.

Meditation listens like a suspence story should read, it builds up tension making use of Norman Simmons’ subtle score and a switch from delicate brush work to exciting press rolls by Charlie Persip, to a release that has Griffin telling a story you could meditate on for hours.

If you think side A is good, try side B. Holla puts you right where you want to be if your left ear digs Brother Ray saying ‘What I’d say’ and your right ear enjoys the halleluja of the Twenty or Thirty Blind Boys of Alabama. Mentioning the inclusion of Bobby Timmons’ So Tired (Timmons, incidentally, has guest spots on Meditation and Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen) and Deep River should give you an idea of what this album is about. While So tired is executed properly, it doesn’t reach the heights of either Timmons’ or Cannonball Adderley’s Quintet’s performances. Deep River is a jubilant affair. Initially, brass and reeds are left out, leaving space for intimate interplay between Griffin and the rhytym section, only to return in the good sense of bombast. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t know where I currently resided but Rampart Street seemed pretty close!

Jazz can do you like that. Here’s a record that has been gathering dust in my cabinet for about fifteen years and up pops a different favorite tune everytime I listen to it now. Rest assured that The Big Soul Band ages as well as any Ardbeg scotch is famous for doing.