Walter Bishop Jr.

Charlie Rouse Takin’ Care Of Business (Jazzland 1960)

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Monk’s long-running sideman takes care of business on his own.

Charlie Rouse - Takin' Care Of Business

Personnel

Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Walter Bishop Jr. (piano), Earl May (bass), Art Taylor (drums)

Recorded

on May 11, 1959 at Plaza Sound Studios, New York City

Released

as JLP-19 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
Blue Farouq
“204”
Upptankt
Side B:
Weirdo
Pretty Strange
They Didn’t Believe Me


Aten-year stint in the group of Thelonious Monk ain’t chicken feed. This was the accomplishment of tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse and it speaks volumes about his skills, artistry and personality. Rouse was asked to join Monk at the start of 1959, the successor to the stint of Johnny Griffin and two short engagements of Sonny Rollins and former Monk associate John Coltrane. That’s a lot of tenor madness and a hell of a challenge. Nobody would’ve argued that Rouse is in the league of Coltrane and Rollins, nor would it have been easy to match the fire of The Little Giant. Indeed, for a lot of people, Charlie Rouse was a surprise pick, not least for a slew of young lions soliciting for the job, Wayne Shorter among them.

Rouse was already a veteran of sorts with a great track record, who had played in the bands of Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Tadd Dameron and was a prolific sideman in the 50s. Preceding the Monk period, Rouse co-led the sophisticated group The Jazz Modes with French horn player Julius Watkins. After a nervous start, he got off well with The High Priest. It is said that Monk was particularly enamored by the genial, relaxed Rouse, which surely was, apart from his abilities, one of the reasons they gelled so well for such a long time. Rouse quickly adjusted to Monk’s focus on melodic improvisation.

Rouse’s contribution on Monk’s 5 By 5 record, sharing the frontline with Thad Jones, is especially spicy and belies the rigorous opinion that Rouse’s solo’s better be casually accepted, criticism ventured from his start with Monk and the kind that inclines to become myth and survive for numerous decades. It would be interesting as well to take a listen to Rouse the balladeer, predominantly his lush interpretation of When Sunny Gets Blue on We Paid Our Dues on Epic from 1961, a record that is equally divided between the groups of Rouse and Seldon Powell.

Takin’ Care Of Business may not be the most inspired of titles. Who didn’t take care of it? However, it’s a strong effort from a top-notch group that further includes trumpeter Blue Mitchell, pianist Walter Bishop Jr., bassist Earl May and drummer Art Taylor. Mitchell contributed Blue Farouq, a hip blues line that also is featured on organist Melvin Rhyne’s Organ-izing and Junior Cook’s Junior’s Cookin’. Interestingly, “204” in fact is Randy Weston’s wonderful waltz Hi-Fly, the initial version with a slightly differing melody. Rouse’s Upptankt (meaning what?) and Kenny Drew’s Weirdo provide the saucy bop contrast to the jaunty take on Jerome Kern composition They Didn’t Believe Me and Randy Weston ballad Pretty Strange – which indeed is pretty strange, certainly not your usual melody with a sequence that is somehow unresolved, moving in front of the bedroom window like a thin fog and rather intriguing in its own weird way.

Solid mainstream from a punchy band, Rouse flowing and with sustained, logical ideas and slightly edgy tones opposite Blue Mitchell’s sinuous, exuberant lines and Walter Bishop Jr.’s charged bop style. Turn-of-that-decade quintet stuff that merits plenty of attention.

Dizzy Reece Soundin’ Off (Blue Note 1960)

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The pieces of the puzzle fell into place for trumpeter Dizzy Reece on his third Blue Note album Soundin’ Off from 1960.

Dizzy Reece - Soundin' Off

Personnel

Dizzy Reece (trumpet), Walter Bishop Jr. (piano), Doug Watkins (bass), Art Taylor (drums)

Recorded

on May 12, 1960 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BLP 4033 in 1960

Track listing

Side A:
Ghost Of A Chance
Once In A While
Eb Pob
Side B:
Yesterdays
Our Love Is Here To Stay
Blue Streak


Mr. Reece is still active these days at the ripe old age of 88. What’s more, performances of Dizzy Reece’s music, Routes In Jazz, have been held last January under the leadership of Trevor Watkins in the United Kingdom to much acclaim. 2019, Cool Britannia caught in the stereotypical web of contemporary polarization, a world away from 1948, when the young Kingston, Jamaica-born Reece set foot first in liberated Paris then the rebuilding war victor, the U.K., where fish and chips was everyone’s requested Last Meal and Stoke-On-Trent a place that played hide and seek with Sheffield under clouds of factory smoke. The talented Reece somehow caught the attention of Blue Note and recorded his debut as a leader, Blues In Trinity, with Donald Byrd, Art Taylor and a British crew including powerhouse tenorist Tubby “Tubbs” Hayes.

Reece moved to New York City in 1959 and, winning fans like Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, soon found himself in the studio of Rudy van Gelder at Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Initially, Reece recorded with a quintet including Hank Mobley, a session that spawned Star Bright. Then Blakey was behind the kit, Stanley Turrentine on tenor saxophone, Bobby Timmons on piano and Jimmy Merritt on bass. The result: Comin’ On, recorded in 1960 but not released until 1999. Great album. Great line-up. In fact – in case you haven’t figured it out yet – Reece and Turrentine fronted a bonafide Jazz Messengers rhythm section. The explosive Blakey regularly pushes the guys to the brink, Reece holding his own pretty darn well.

However, I have warmer feelings for Soundin’ Off. The relaxed but probing rhythmic flow of drummer Art Taylor, bassist Doug Watkins and pianist Walter Bishop Jr. and the fact that Reece is the sole horn gives the trumpeter ample opportunity to let his true voice ring. A voice gay here, mournful there, tender, witty, sexy. Sexy enough to seduce audiences in the Big Apple, yet because of lack of opportunities Reece re-settled in jazz-minded Europe eventually. In a 2004 Jazz Times interview Reece said that he also got negative feedback on his integrated marriage.

Reece favors expressive statements over speed trials, wrapping his loving arms around ballads like Ghost Of A Chance, ridin’ on the blue notes of Once In A While with sleazy slurs, swinging smoothly on medium-tempo tunes like the Monk-ish Reece original Eb Pob – Ecaroh, Airegin, Eb Pob… Those modern jazz guys knew their way with wordplay. The nimble and occasionally locked-hands-lines of Bishop Jr. and the jubilant Reece make Yesterdays absolutely irresistible.

Sweet but with a lot of spunk. The way we like our hard bop artists from the Blue Note roster.

The album is part of a compilation package on Spotify, starts with track 13, up to 18. Listen below.

Walter Bishop Jr. Speak Low (Jazztime 1961)

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Prove me wrong, but it’s hard to find a better album in the career of pianist Walter Bishop Jr. than his debut as a leader from 1961, Speak Low.

Walter Bishop Jr. - Speak Low

Personnel

Walter Bishop Jr. (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), C.T. Hogan (drums)

Recorded

on March 14, 1961 at Bell Sound Studios, New York City

Released

as JT 002 in 1961

Track listing

Side A:
Sometimes I’m Happy
Blues In The Closet
On Green Dolphin Street
Side B:
Alone Together
Milestones
Speak Low


It sure is rated as a classic. The Popsike website lists triple-digit transactions, climaxing in a 2016 eBay transaction of a wopping 2000 US $. Prices presumably are high because of the obscure label, early catalogue nr, (002) and scarcity of supply. May be so. The vinyl world has gone berserk. Money is what makes the world go ‘round. I do hope the buyer keeps his scraggly Chihuahua in a standing and not a sitting-and-shitting position. Might just ruin a solid investment. Speaks for itself, neither a Chihuahua, nor the vinyl copy of this album is in my possession. I’m a cat man in jazz cat’s world.

Bishop Jr, born in Sugar Hill, Harlem NYC, home to his childhood pals Sonny Rollins, Art Taylor and Kenny Drew, bebop colleague of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis from 1951 to ’54, without a cabaret card in the late fifties due to a drug bust and as a consequence banned from New York clubs, resurfaced in the early sixties with a regular trio including Jimmy Garrison and C.T. Hogan. Whilst dedicating a lot of his time to teaching in the seventies and beyond, Bishop turned in a record every year in the seventies and kept recording and performing in the New York area until his demise in 1998. Perhaps best known as a sideman, and a brilliant one at that, Bishop Jr. appeared on, among other, Charlie Parker’s With Strings, Miles Davis’ Dig and Collector’s Items, Kenny Dorham’s Quintet and Inta Something, Blakey’s Blakey and Big Band, Milt Jackson’s Meets Milt, Hank Mobley’s 2nd Message, Jackie McLean’s Capuchin Swing and Swing Swang Swingin’.

In this set of traditionals, the assets of Walter Bishop Jr. are laid out for our thorough enjoyment. Though firmly rooted in bebop, Bishop Jr. doesn’t strictly think in changes, but focuses on classy harmony as well. Throughout his carefully crafted solo’s, Bishop Jr. throws in charged cadenzas high up on the keys, sudden dissonant notes and tasteful bits of double time, occasionally ending with intricate chordal runs. It’s all there in the title track, Speak Low, listen here as well as the fast-paced Milestones (the Miles Davis composition), which also boasts Bishop’s Jr.’s precise, propulsive phrasing. Rollicking tremolos, recurring blues and stride figures reveal a genuine passion for the past. Every tune, especially the medium-tempo Alone Together, listen here tells a surprising story. He’s got a firm attack, like his mentor Bud Powell, in such a way that one often expects a key to jump merrily out of the keyboard. That’s another alluring asset of the masterful Walter Bishop Jr., who delivered a debut album that has gloriously stood the test of time.

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.