Five-Star Collection... Jimmy Raney

Jimmy Raney Quintet

Jimmy Raney Plays

There are a number of guitarists in jazz today who choose good notes, show facility in playing them, and have "that swing" which "it don't mean a thing if you ain't got". Jimmy Raney has all of these qualifications, and with them a thinking content in his playing which sets him at the top of his division as the significant guitarist.

This album is important because it brings Jimmy into the foreground after playing a subordinate role for too long. His two-chorus solos have a unity and clarity to them that represent his best recorded work to date. For faithful reproduction of his sound, this album is also a high-water mark. In addition, he has offered more convincing evidence of his talents as a composer. (...)

The group itself is a corps of the core of jazz, the small unit. (...)

The cover is by David Young, a young painter from Boston whose feeling for jazz enabled him to direct his artistry into an effective delineation of the subject at hand.

*Ira Gitler (from the liner notes)*

The Raney guitar, long a feature on numerous combos' cuttings, gets its own day in the sun at last in this fine LP comprising four double-length performances. Raney is teamed with a tenor man described on the cover as "Sven Coolson", though you will recognize him immediately as Lars Getzberg. Thus the overall result is similar to many of the sides Stan and Jimmy cut together for Roost, except that Jimmy gets the longer solos.

Jimmy wrote the three originals, which have a Tristanoish touch in their charming unison lines. Signal is the most attractive. Jimmy has found a good compromise between the muffled Tal Farlow sound and the "live" tone of the older—Charlie Christian—school. And he swings always.

Rhythm section is excellent, though the solo passages of Hall Overton (who sounds like a classical musician dipping his fingers into bop) and bassist Red Mitchell are the weakest spots of the disc. Midnight, the old Monk tune, is handled in a most relaxed fashion as Raney and Getz weave their way in and out of its still alluring chord structure. Frank Isola’s drumming is effectively discreet throughout both sides. *Down Beat, Chicago, August 26, 1953 [5 stars]*

Side 1

1 - Motion

(Jimmy Raney)

2 - Lee

(Jimmy Raney)

Side 2

3 - Signal

(Jimmy Raney)

4 - 'Round About Midnight

(Thelonious Monk)

Jimmy Raney (guitar), Stan Getz as "Sven Coolson" (tenor sax),

Hall Overton (piano), Keith "Red" Mitchell (bass), Frank Isola (drums).

Recorded at WOR Recording Studios, New York City, April 23, 1953

Five-Star Collection... Many Albam

Manny Albam

Manny Albam And The Jazz Greats Of Our Time • Vol.1

Considering the fact that much of the essential character of jazz is derived from the spontaneity and excitement of improvisation, it would certainly seem that the most definitive jazz writing should be in compatible relation with, and emphasize the role of, the soloist. In essence, a marriage between the improvisation and the writing: the writer providing a pithy framework that is thought-provoking and impetus to the soloist, and in turn, the soloist, given the necessary latitude, investing life, individuality and substance to the story intimated in the writing.

There are some critics and musicians who subscribe to the polar aspects of this subject: some stand for improvisation in the complete sense —spontaneous, intuitive—without framework or guideposts; others line up for composition to the point of shutting off the soloist by writing everything, or giving him only a limited role. And then, there are variations on both. However, the middle ground, in its equivalent relation between writing and blowing, gives evidence of being the best approach.

We must enlarge for clarity... In their own way, some of these polar ventures have been successful, but whether they are jazz or not, is a matter for discussion. On the other hand, going toward the middle ground, definitions become clear, and the performance becomes jazz in the more accepted sense, retaining the idiom’s identifiable markings.

In truth, tradition is most accessible from the vantage point of the middle ground, and if anything were to define the writing of Manny Albam, it would be its great respect and reflection of tradition:

"I cannot divorce myself from tradition, for it's where we all come from, and it should be a base from which we operate in jazz. If writing is to be JAZZ WRITING, it should fuse the elements particular to its own tradition — the beat, improvisation within a disciplinary frame, and its own unique feeling.

"On this CORAL set, the first of a series, I had the blowers, the guys who dig deeply, and endow writing with the necessary richness of improvisational content. This is just what I wanted, for I feel that an inter-relation, inter-dependence between writing and blowing in jazz composition is imperative."*Burt Korall (from the liner notes)* 

This makes it. Manny Albam, an arranger sensitive to the blowing as well as the writing scene, assembled a good cross-section of eastern mainstream hornmen, supplied them with three-quarters of the New York Rhythm Section, and gave them some material on which to embroider, ranging from sparkling to merely fine.

Oddly enough, or perhaps justly enough, I found the Albam originals to be more fertile in terms of the results shown here. The two non-Albam tracks, Sweetie and Duke's All Too Soon, don't compare with the consistency and wealth of solos with which Blues for Neither Coast is endowed.

In fact, the only other track I found as richly rewarding as Neither Coast was Dr. Millmoss, and in this, Albam scores by using a simple device: Mulligan and Cohn playing the bass line on baritones as a binding factor in the composition.

Brookmeyer emerges as the most constantly challenging soloist. His appearances on the first three tracks, particularly on Blues, are glistening. His solo on Minor Matters is excellent, and his second solo on All Too Soon is moving and powerful.

Art Farmer's opening solo on Neither Coast is among his best recorded work. Zoot is unusually subdued throughout, except on Sweetie, where he boots along like the freewheeling tenor man we have come to know. Woods is stabbing and often terse. His playing of late has been brimming with tension. Travis is fine, particularly tasty in his muted work. Mulligan is good, but he has been more declarative as a soloist in his own group. As a supporting voice, he is excellent. Cohn is smooth and flowing, as expected. And Hank Jones remains one of the most tasteful of pianists.

Although I raise an eyebrow at the album title, I realize that other contractual commitments would of necessity exclude such vital voices as Miles, Monk, Diz, Hawk, J. J., Max Roach, and Pettiford, among other greats.

Burt Korall's liner notes are a valuable guidepost to the team lines followed by the participants. Manny has a West Coast collection due for release to complement this East Coast cross section. *Dom Cerulli (Down Beat, November 28, 1957 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Blues From Neither Coast

(Manny Albam)

2 - Latined Fracture

(Manny Albam)

3 - Poor Dr. Millmoss

(Manny Albam)

Side 2

4 - Minor Matters

(Manny Albam)

5 - My Sweetie Went Away

(Roy Turk, Lou Handman)

6 - All Too Soon

(Duke Ellington, Carl Sigman)

7 - See Here, Miss Bromley

(Manny Albam)

Art Farmer, Nick Travis (trumpets); Bob Brookmeyer (valve trombone); Phil Woods (alto sax);

Zoot Sims (tenor sax); AI Cohn (tenor sax, baritone sax); Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax);

Hank Jones (piano); Milt Hinton (bass); Osie Johnson (drums); Manny Albam (arranger, conductor).

Recorded in New York City, April 2 [#5], April 3 [#3, #6, #7] and April 4 [#1, #2, #4], 1957

✳✳✳

Manny Albam

Manny Albam And The Jazz Greats Of Our Time • Vol. 2

By design, the writing for this set is spare. Though engaging in its own right, jazz composer-arranger MANNY ALBAM aimed for functionality, writing catalytic frameworks for his soloists. Like the writer of plays, he provided provocative material, but left it to his players to breathe life and immediacy into his story.

Says Manny Albam — "Regardless of what is said to the contrary, jazz is, and always has been a player’s art. When the jazz composer-arranger realizes this, adjusts his working perspective accordingly, giving due consideration and space to the soloist, only then can jazz composition become the community of expression it is at its best... I feel that an inter-relation, inter-dependence between writing and blowing in jazz composition is imperative."

If anything were to truly define the writing of Manny Albam, it would be its great respect and reflection of tradition.

Following traditional procedure: incorporation of elements particular to the jazz tradition — the beat, improvisation within a disciplinary frame, and jazz's own unique feeling — has become increasingly important to him.

Awareness of the past, or shall we say, the whole of jazz, is likely to make one's work all the more meaningful. Having functioned as a writer in a wide range of jazz situations (scoring big bands — Auld, Barnet, Kenton, Herman, etc., jazz backgrounds for vocalists, small bands) helped him to this realization.

For this set, recorded in Hollywood, Manny employed 'blowers'; men equipped to fill his frameworks with the necessary improvisational nutrition. Once again, proof is accessible that players of substance are players of substance regardless of geographical boundaries.

*Burt Korall (from the liner notes)*

This set is a perfect companion piece to Albam’s Jazz Greats, Vol. 1, and some of the comments on that LP apply to this one. For instance, I still find Albam's originals far more interesting throughout than the standards. Possible exception here is De-Lovely, and again I find it's more Manny’s arrangement than the tune itself which makes it.

At any rate, I'll wager there hasn't been a moodier, lovelier ballad original than Afterthoughts (Benny Golson and his remarkable ballad compositions are not included in this bet). Kamuca and Candoli combine on Afterthoughts to create a stunningly somber mood, with the rest of the ensemble pitched low behind them. You can almost feel the rain.

Interwoven is interesting structurally, with sharp Mariano and Geller, and some pungent interchanges between Candoli and Sweets, the latter identified as Trumpeter X because of contractual ties.

Sweets has most of Sweet's-Bread to himself, and blows some compelling trumpet with the ensemble cast in a Basie vein. Harry stays in that groove, blowing relaxed muted trumpet on his and Basie's Jive at Five, and manages a witty phrase variation in the closing statement of the theme.

Thunder-Burt, similar in conception and main theme to Blues for Neither Coast in Vol. 1, is a good comparison track for buffs wishing to carry the East Coast–West Coast discussion into late spring. Solos here, perhaps because of the overall feel of the piece, are funkier, particularly Mariano’s baritone, Williamson's trombone, and Candoli (dig his trace of Eldridge at the end of his second chorus), and to a lesser extent, Flory and Kamuca.

De-Lovely is freshly arranged and smartly played all around. How Long, a muted, shadowy ballad, has some rough spots in Sheldon's solo and at the close of Levy's fine piano spot (with some interesting things going on behind him by Shelly).

If, after listening to both coasts on the two volumes, you can draw any conclusion, it will have to include that each swings, although the westerners seem to find their kicks in a Countish vein. You might also note that this is the third Coral LP in recent months by Albam, which has been in every way a superior effort. He seems to have crystallized that knack of writing brightly without lapsing into pretentiousness, and can score for plenty of solo blowing without just arranging a head and a tail and letting the soloists construct the rest of the skeleton as well as fleshing it out.

*Dom Cerulli (Down Beat, February 20, 1958 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Intervowen

(Manny Albam)

2 - Afterthoughts

(Manny Albam)

3 - Sweet's-Bread

(Manny Albam)

Side 2

4 - Jive At Five

(Harry Edison, Count Basie)

5 - Thurnder Burt

(Manny Albam)

6 - How Long Has This Been Going On?

(George and Ira Gershwin)

7 - It's De-Lovely

(Cole Porter)

Conte Candoli, Jack Sheldon [#2, #5, #6],

Harry Edison as "Trumpeter X" [#1, #3, #4, #7] (trumpets); Stu Williamson (valve trombone);

Herb Geller (alto sax); Richie Kamuca, Med Flory [#2, #5, #6] (tenor saxes);

Bill Holman [#1, #3, #4, #7] (tenor sax, baritone sax);

Charlie Mariano (alto sax, tenor sax, baritone sax); 

Lou Levy (piano); Red Mitchell (bass); Shelly Manne (drums); Manny Albam (arranger, conductor). 

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, August 4 [#2, #5, #6],

August 15 [#3, #4, #7] and August 16 [#1], 1957

Five-Star Collection... Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan Quartet

Paris Concert

Few bands have shot to the top and won the unanimous acclaim of jazz fans as quickly as has the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.

It was with some apprehension, therefore, that we looked forward to their appearance at the Salle Pleyel on June 1, 1954, as part of the Third Paris Jazz Festival, for we had been disappointed more than once by famous soloists or big name bands from America.

Having heard only records, and knowing what marvelous results modern recording techniques can produce, weren't we going to be disappointed by a personal appearance? Would such a reduced combo be able to project beyond the footlights in as large and cold a hall as the Salle Pleyel? Wouldn't the balance of the Quartet suffer from having Chet Baker's trumpet replaced by the trombone of Bob Brookmeyer, who was completely unknown here? And last of all, how could this simple little quartet of white musicians compete with the memories left by the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, or by Louis Armstrong's dynamic Hot Five which we had previously heard in this same Salle Pleyel?

All these fears melted away as if by magic the moment the Gerry Mulligan Quartet launched into the first bars of "Come Out Wherever You Are," with which they opened the first set of the Jazz Festival that memorable evening of June 1, 1954.

Something very unusual happened — for a jazz concert: the audience was seized at once by a sort of rapt fervor, and a real communion was established between the public and the band. It was as if the audience had suddenly put aside its customary boisterousness to give complete attention to a really special musical treat.  *Charles Dalaunay (from the liner notes)*

A record of a Paris Concert, specifically a June 1, 1954, event at Paris' Salle Pleyel, part of the Third Paris Jazz Festival. Drummer is Frank Isola, with Red Mitchell on bass and Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone. So far as I know, this is the only recording available of the quartet with Brookmeyer as the complementary horn (although Bob and Gerry have recorded together in other contexts).

Although Gerry has since wisely gone on beyond the limitations inherent in this kind of quartet, it's valuable to have a record of the quartet at its height in that Brookmeyer is a more creative, thinking musician than were any of his predecessors in the unit. As a result, Mulligan is also extended, and the playing of the two throughout is a stimulating, sinewy set of superior examples of the art of modern collective linear improvisation. Both are also creative soloists with guts and jazz-roots. (Dig the more vigorous than heretofore quartet version of Moonlight and those moving Shoes).

Mitchell is excellent (he also has a fine solo on Love Me). Isola could flow more, but he's a steady drummer. The set includes the whole scene with the applause and even with some of Gerry's well-intentioned French. Generally good recorded sound. Notes are by Charles Delaunay, head of France's Jazz-Hot. *Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, March 21, 1956 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Come Out Wherever You Are

(J. Styne, S. Cahn)

2 - Five Brothers

(Gerry Mulligan)

3 - Laura

(D. Raksin, J. Mercer)

4 - Love Me Or Leave Me

(W. Donaldson, G. Kahn)

5 - Utter Chaos (Mulligan closing theme)

(Gerry Mulligan)

Side 2

6 - Bernie's Tune

(B. Miller)

7 - Walkin' Shoes

(Gerry Mulligan)

8 - Moonlight In Vermont

(K. Suessdorf, J. Blackburn)

9 - The Lady Is A Tramp

(R. Rodgers, L. Hart)

10 - Utter Chaos (Mulligan closing theme)

(Gerry Mulligan)

Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), Bob Brookmeyer (valve trombone),

Red Mitchell (bass), Frank Isola (drums).

Recorded live at Salle Pleyel, Paris, France, June 1, 1954

Five-Star Collection... Porgy And Bess

Miles Davis

Porgy And Bess

The inherent pensiveness of Gil Evans' writing and the introversion of Miles Davis' playing produces something akin to a gas flame turned as low as it can be without going out. Its heat is quiet, but very intense.

What is it possible to say now about Gil Evans? This man has genius. He is one of the few living composers whose magic passes all the technical tests for stature without dying in the process. He has taken what he wanted and needed from the classical tradition, and yet remained a jazz writer, safely evading the lure of contemporary classical music, which has written itself up a blind alley. In His control and reserve (notice Summertime) he can put you in mind of Sibelius, who may have been the last classical composer to express himself naturally and without calculation of effects and because he felt it that way. Yet Evans is unique, and his development has been quite personal. His debts are to himself: there are things in this album that hark back to his days of writing for Claude Thornhill.

The Porgy songs submerged in this album, soaked up by the personalities  — or rather, the joint personality — of Evans and Davis. You forget the underlying structures and, since the music used is not in the standard AABA pop song form to begin with, the album becomes a remarkable jazz experience, both for the musicians and the listener, who will be forcibly reminded of the great seriousness and the greatness in jazz, the universality in it that Andre Hodeir is always talking about.

Some of the best of Miles is to be heard in this album — along with some of the sloppiest. There are cracked and fuzzed notes and other things that just shouldn't have been let go. (Strawberry may make all but the most uncritical Davis fans squirm.) Why these things were let pass is anybody's guess. Maybe Miles didn’t care. Maybe they were let pass in accordance with the dubious faith that even mistakes are part of the whole and therefore to be admired in jazz. Maybe it is because the executives-in-charge think that Miles' stature is such that these considerations are small in comparison — which, as a matter of fact, is true.

In any case, the Davis-Evans relationship has again produced superb music. In the jazz albums of Porgy, this one is in a class by itself. Which figures: it named its own terms.

*Down Beat, July 23, 1959 (5 stars)*

1 - The Buzzard Song

2 - Bess, You Is My Woman Now

3 - Gone

4 - Gone, Gone, Gone

5 - Summertime

6 - Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess

7 - Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)

8 - Fishermen, Strawberry And Devil Crab

9 - My Man's Gone Now

10 - It Ain't Necessarily So

11 - Here Come De Honey Man

12 - I Loves You Porgy

13 - There's A Boat That's Leaving Soon For New York

(All compositions by George Gershwin)

Miles Davis (trumpet, flugelhorn);

Ernie Royal, Bernie Glow, Johnny Coles, Louis Mucci (trumpets);

Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett (trombones);

Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller (french horns); Bill Barber (tuba);

Phil Bodner, Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque (flutes, alto flutes, clarinets)

Cannonball Adderley (alto sax), Danny Bank (alto flute, bass flute, bass clarinet);

Paul Chambers (bass); Philly Joe Jones [#1, #3 to #7, #9, #12, #13],

Jimmy Cobb [#2, #8, #10, #11] (drums). Gil Evans (arranger, conductor)

Recorded at CBS 30th Street Studio, New York City, July 22 [#3, #4, #9], 

July 29 [#2, #8, #10, #11], August 4 [#1, #5, #6, #7, #13], August 18 [#12], 1958

✳✳✳

The Bill Potts Big Band

The Jazz Soul Of Porgy And Bess

An immediate and obvious comparison will arise between this album and the Miles Davis Porgy album. It should be dismissed. All they have in common is that they are the two outstanding instrumental Porgy performances in the rash of recent releases of discs inspired by the movie. Otherwise, they are dissimilar. Their purposes are different, and so are their final effects.

This LP, in which United Artists is taking thoroughly justified pride, is actually truer to the spirit of the Gershwin music than the Miles-Gil album was or was meant to be. And it establishes Washingtonian Potts as a major arranger. This is a man to be watched.

The instrumentation he has used is what might be termed augmented conventional. Potts finds his colors — and rich ones they are — in the instruments considered normal to jazz. But by the careful (and brilliant) use of the highly individual soloists at his disposal, he has created a tapestry of rich variety.

All the men are given blowing room, and Sims, Cohn, Brookmeyer, Farmer, and Edison turn in individual statements that are up to the standards we have come to expect of them. Indeed, there isn't a poor solo in the lot, and some are superb. Evans plays with a harder jazz feeling than has usually been thought to be within his scope. Markowitz, not too known to the public as a jazzman, invests My Man's Gone Now with all the warmth and feeling it can hold.

Of course, there can be a danger in having so many gifted soloists playing section. But in the ensemble passages, all of them submerge themselves in the task at hand, and the result is a cohesiveness and power rarely found in studio-band playing.

This project was the coddled baby of UA's Jazz A&R man, Jack Lewis. The coddling was worth it, and he is to be congratulated. This is a beautiful, beautiful album.

*Down Beat, September 3, 1959 (5 stars)*

1 - Summertime

2 - A Woman Is A Sometime Thing

3 - My Man's Gone Now

4 - It Takes A Long Pull To Get There

5 - I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'

6 - Bess You Is My Woman

7 - It Ain't Necessarily So

8 - Medley: Prayer, Strawberries, Honey Man, Crab Man

9 - I Loves You Porgy

10 - Clara, Clara

11- There's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York

12 - Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess

13 - Oh Lawd, I'm On My Way

(All compositions by George Gershwin)

Art Farmer, Harry Edison, Bernie Glow, Markie Markowitz, Charlie Shavers (trumpets);

Bob Brookmeyer, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Earl Swope, Rod Levitt (trombones);

Phil Woods, Gene Quill (alto saxes); Zoot Sims, Al Cohn (tenor saxes);

Sol Schlinger (baritone sax); Bill Evans (piano); George Duvivier (bass);

Herbie Powell (guitar); Charley Persip (drums); Bill Potts (arranger, conductor).

Recorded at Webster Hall, New York City, January 13, 14 and 15, 1959

Five-Star Collection... John Coltrane

John Coltrane

Soultrane

When reading The New Yorker, usually, I am most amused by an S. J. Perelman gem, the cartoons of something in "The Talk Of The Town". In the May 17, 1958 issue, however, it was the jazz department that gave me my biggest guffaw when Whitney Balliett, in the course of reviewing a Miles Davis album, wrote, "Coltrane, a student of Sonny Rollins…" Of course, we know he didn't mean that Trane was going to Sonny's house, armed with a Klose book, for weekly lessons but the implication was clear, in this perfunctory dismissal, that Coltrane was indebted to Rollins for his style.

It is true that when Coltrane joined Miles Davis's quintet in late 1955, Sonny (the Rollins of that time and slightly before) was exerting a peripheral influence over him. Even this proved to be transient. The influences of Dexter Gordon (vintage 1946), Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz (certain facets of sound) and a general essence of Charlie Parker were more evident, even then. Since that time, Trane has developed along personal lines to become quite an influence himself. He and Sonny are parallel figures now, each contributing new ideas to jazz in his own way.

"Soultrane" is a ballad, written by Tadd Dameron, which appears on Mating Call (Prestige 7070 — an album which features Coltrane and Dameron). This album, called Soultrane, does not include that tune but Prestige thought the name an apt one for an entire collection of Coltrane because it plays on his name in a truly descriptive way.

Trane is very serious about his playing; playing jazz is what he is most concerned with. There is a constant effort, on his part, to keep improving. He is self-critical and helpfully, because of clear insight, self-analytical. Practice is not foreign to him.

As in his last album (7123), Trane has the support of Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Arthur Taylor. These four have done much playing together. In this case, familiarity breeds rapport.

Another admirable facet is duplicated from the last album. That is the playing of seldom-done tunes. 7123 had "Soft Lights And Sweet Music", "You Leave Me Breathless" and Alonzo Levister's "Slow Dance". In Soultrane, none of the selections have been overdone and three are entirely new to jazz interpretation. *Ira Gitler (from the liner notes)*

In this very, very good LP, John Coltrane gives a picture of himself which is true in several dimensions. The set, first of all, is one I consider representative of what Coltrane is doing today with the Miles Davis group. That I consider him one of the few most exciting tenor-playing individuals in jazz today has no bearing on the rating, but I do use the "individuals" in its fullest connotation.

Coltrane has been, and is here, playing in a highly personal manner. What he is doing has been described variously as sheets of sound or ribbons of sound or, by some less interested ears, as a haphazard running of as many notes as possible. I find a logic in his playing. And although he does sometimes fail to get his flow underway, the times that it does happen are among the most tingling in modern jazz. What I do admire in him is that he is always going for something beyond him, and that he never falls back on an easy or accepted way of doing what he wants to do.

On this set, Coltrane also has some passages of extremely lyrical playing, particularly on the ballads Talk and Care. He blows straight-forward and with warmth.

Backing is first-rate, and Garland's solo spots are fine. By all means hear this one.

*Dom Cerulli (Down Beat, December 11, 1958 [5 stars])*

1 - Good Bait

(Dameron, Basie)

2 - I Want To Talk About You

(Billy Eckstine)

3 - You Say You Care

(Styne, Robin)

4 - Theme For Ernie

(Fred Lacey)

5 - Russian Lullaby

(Irving Berlin)

John Coltrane (tenor sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Art Taylor (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey, February 7, 1958

Five-Star Collection... Kenny Drew

The Kenny Drew Trio
New Faces • New Sounds

Blue Note has presented a number of inspired and inspiring modern jazz piano artists in recent years, several of whom were virtually discovered and launched in the record field by this label. Among them are Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly, Thelonious Monk, and Horace Silver. This is no less true of Kenny Drew, a native New Yorker who was playing around town for quite some time, more or less ignored by the name musicians, until Howard McGhee used him on a Blue Note session in January 1950.

(...)

After his disc debut with McGhee and consequent acceptance by the big-timers, he was heard in clubs or on records with everyone from Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, and Lester Young to Milt Jackson, Sonny Stitt, and Buddy DeFranco. It was with Buddy’s quartet, touring the country and recording frequently in 1952 and '53, that most jazz fans became familiar with his name and style.

(...)

Kenny's solo debut in this set is notable for the colorful variety of the performances, ranging from the brilliant elaboration of Jerome Kern's Yesterdays to the swinging simplicity of his own Drew's Blues. Particularly impressive is his unusual choice of tempos, exemplified by the jump treatments of It Might As Well Be Spring and Be My Love — the latter might aptly be described as the answer to Lanza!

(...)

Kenny’s work is cast in the modernist mold, but it seems to owe allegiance to no one model; on the contrary, a careful hearing of these sides will reveal that Kenny has already developed his own personality at the keyboard. He is a proud addition to the growing ranks of the modern jazz piano family. *Leonard Feather (from the liner notes)*

Often praised on this page for his many excellent solos with DeFranco, 25-year-old Kenny wins his solo colors here with a set of six standards, a blues, and a pretty original.

On occasion he can be simple as all get out (Everything); then he can turn around and be as complex as you like, in the overlong but never dull Yesterdays. At the uptempos, as when he swingingly delanzafies Be My Love, he's in the Bud Powell class.

Art Blakey and Curly Russell, as you'd expect, are responsible for at least two-thirds of the success of the trio, with Art soloing, not too long or too flashily, in a couple of spots.

(Down Beat, Chicago, September 23, 1953 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Yesterdays

(Kern, Harbach)

2 - Stella By Starlight

(Young, Washington) 

3 - Gloria

(Kenny Drew)

4 - Be My Love

(Cahn, Brodszky)

Side 2

5 - Lover Come Back To Me

(Romberg, Hammerstein)

6 - Everything Happens To Me

(Adair)

7 - It Might As Well Be Spring

(Rodgers, Hammerstein)

8 - Drew's Blues

(Kenny Drew)

Kenny Drew (piano), Curly Russell (bass), Art Blakey (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey, April 16, 1953

Five-Star Collection... Lennie Tristano

Lennie Tristano

Tristano

A great many people are going to be surprised by this set. It presents a Lennie Tristano far removed from the figure of their — and the critics' — imagination. Uncompromising he may be, as has been noted many a time, in the public prints and in private discussions. But remote, inaccessible, recondit he is not, except in the sense that any first-rate artist has ideas to offer which are necessarily his own and nobody else's and hence so fresh, so crisp, so inspired as to seem — or sound — altogether new and quite thoroughly removed from any familiar thinking — or playing-pattern, No, there is nothing really obscure about Lennie's playing here, nothing really beyond the grasp of anybody with any feeling for, or fairly considerable listening experience in, jazz.

This is jazz, no mistaking it for anything else. It meets all the requirements: it is improvised, brilliantly adding ideas to ideas all the way through; it swings, rapturously, whether up or middling-up or slow in tempo; it offers, both in Lennie’s playing with bass and drums and with Lee Konitz and rhythm, that delicate internal tension, that collective creativity which is the special identifying mark of the real thing in this music.

And so it is to the jazz in this record that I suggest you listen, forgetting, if you can, any preconceived notions about what Lennie Tristano represents in modern music, anything you may have read about his personality, his ideas, his group, his students or teaching method or anything much besides, no matter how directly relevant it may seem to you. Isn't it, after all, in a man's painting, if he is a painter, in his poetry, if he is a poet, or in his music, if he is a composer, that one should look for his personality, his ideas, or anything else of any sizable significance? And isn't this particularly true of jazz, where a performer composes as he blows, if he is a genuine jazz musician, and therefore exposes himself more honestly than in most arts? And if it isn't true, then why bother — why bother painting or writing or composing or blowing in the first place? and why bother looking or reading or listening in the second?

After listening to these tracks, I think you’ll agree with me that what you have heard is impression enough of the Tristano thinking processes and that, unquestionably, Lennie's ideas must seek musical outlet, must find jazz outlet, and we must pay attention, hard, earnest attention, and do so with every sort of listening ease.

(...)

Balance all around is to be found in this collection: a trial balance of tempo and time and personality differences which accounts for the jockeying of tapes and changing of speeds and multiplication of piano lines in Lennie's solo tracks; a tested balance of soloists and tunes and tempos and personalities which accounts for the orderly procedure and unmitigated pleasure of the alto and piano solos and duos in the tracks Lennie and Lee play together. And all of it — and this I cannot insist upon too strongly — comes out jazz, real jazz, great jazz.

*Barry Ulanov (from the liner notes)*

Lennie Tristano's first LP in several years is an absorbing. The first four tracks were recorded by Lennie at his own private recording studio. On the first, he superimposed his piano over a previous tape of bassist Peter Ind and drummer Jeff Morton after he adjusted to his satisfaction what they had done. The second has paired piano lines. On the third he taped three lines, one on top of the other. On the fourth he did what he had done in the first. The last five tracks were recorded at the Sing Song room of the Confucius restaurant last summer with Lee Konitz, Gene Ramey, and Arthur Taylor.

Throughout there is every evidence of a Tristano who has continued to grow and deepen. He is still very much his own man, a man who is driven to continue searching to find and challenge more of himself in his music. He plays authoritatively with a propulsive, intensely alive forcefulness (see tracks one and four, for example.) Anyone still suspecting his ability to communicate emotion should hear the naked power in the >Requiem< blues he plays for Charlie Parker. On the ballad sides with Lee, there is a richer, deeper though never ornamental lyricism than Lennie has shown on records before. And always, there is his imaginative resourcefulness, an imagination, however, that works organically, for there is never the touch of patchwork in any Tristano performance. It all comes from inside the development of the music — and the man. Konitz is lucid, logical, unfailingly interesting, and increasingly emotional.

Two footnotes: dig the further possibilities of multirhythms as explored by Tristano in Turkish Mambo. Secondly, Barry Ulanov states in connection with Lennie's adjusting the bass and drum take before superimposing his piano to it: "The great day for jazz will be when rhythm sections — one or two or three musicians large — will be able to think and play and beat that steadily, with such regularity and rapidity and imagination, that it will be possible to record alongside them instead of over them." It's true Lennie has problems finding the exactly right rhythm section for him, but that's no reason to maintain that there aren't rhythm sections for others that can very successfully be recorded alongside instead of over. The situation rhythm-section-wise in jazz is far from that bad. There's always a need for more firstrate rhythm men, but let's not put down the strong nucleus of them we have.

The recorded sound Lennie gets in his studio excellent. Confucius sound is good but could have been better. *Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, April 18, 1956 [5 stars])*

1 - Line Up

(Lennie Tristano)

2 - Requiem

(Lennie Tristano)

3 - Turkish Mambo

(Lennie Tristano)

4 - East Thirty-Second

(Lennie Tristano)

5 - These Foolish Things

(Link, Strachey, Marvell)

6 -  You Go To My Head

(J. K. Coots)

7 - If I Had You

(Shapiro, Campbell, Connelly)

8 - Ghost Of A Chance

(Crosby, Washington, Young)

9 - All The Things You Are

(Kern, Hammerstein)

#1 to #4:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Peter Ind (bass), Jeff Morton (drums).

Recorded at Tristano's Home Studio, New York City, 1955

#5 to #9:

Lennie Tristano (piano), Lee Konitz (alto sax), Gene Ramey (bass), Art Taylor (drums).

Recorded live at The Sing Song Room, Confucius Restaurant, New York City, June 11, 1955

Five-Star Collection... John Mehegan

John Mehegan

The First Mehegan

In this album Savoy is proud to present to the Jazz listening audience, another recital by one of the finest of contemporary pianists, Johnny Mehegan. This is volume one of what we respectfully title "The First Mehegan", also noting that Johnny is a teacher of improvisation at Juilliard Conservatory in New York City where he has taught the ageless beauty of classical music and the new vitality of Jazz. As the expressive medium in this session, we choose the trio and quartet, presenting other modern Jazz giants to support Johnny's ideas. The quartet sides feature Chuck Wayne, an extremely swinging and authoritative guitarist, and Vinnie Burke on bass, plus the new drum star Joe Morello. Trio-wise we have Charles Mingus, a great bassist and personality in modern Jazz, and also a legitimate composer in his own right, plus Kenny Clarke, the "daddy" of modern drummers. Throughout, they all support the mood and add a swinging presence to the performance.

(...)

I feel that the outstanding characteristic of Mehegan's musical invention is in its simplicity, and in the exhaustive depth and subtlety of his expression. However, by simplicity, this is definitely not the connotation of "easy" or "uninspired", rather, as an artist friend has expressed, "his is a studied simplicity". That is the application of artistic restraint, wherein the musician selects with delicate skill the concise figure, offering the light stroke as opposed to the grandiose flourish or the contrived statement. (...) It has been my pleasure to know Johnny but a few months, but in that time he has earned a professional and personal respect of no small import. I suggest a similar realization of his magnitude and scope would surely benefit our Jazz-art.  *Jack McKinney (from the liner notes)*

Here is a real talent, one who has a gleaming jazz future. There is confidence in Mehegan's attack, and knowledge in his notes, and he swings. John has absorbed many influences, from Teddy Wilson and Nat Cole to Bud Powell and Lennie Tristano, but he has welded them all into an expression of his own beliefs and personality. He has a message.

First four sides have Charlie Mingus on bass and Kenny Clarke, drums. Last four spot guitarist Chuck Wayne, bassist Vinnie Burke, and drummer Joe Morello.

Aside from Mehegan, who plays superbly on all the bands, you may be as impressed as I was by Mingus on Thou Swell, Chuck Wayne on Stella, on which he and Mehegan play like Siamese twins, and by the drumming of both Clarke and Morello — always pulsating, always helpful, always tasteful.

This one Savoy calls The First Mehegan. The second is already being eagerly awaited by at least one person. *Jack Tracy (Down Beat, August 10, 1955 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Cherokee

(Noble, Shapiro)

2 - The Boy Next Door

 (Martin, Blane)

3 - Blue's Too Much

(David)

4 - Thou Swell

(Rodgers, Hart)

Side 2

5 - Taking A Chance On Love

(Duke, Fetter, Latouche)

6 - Uncus

(Mehegan)

7 - Sirod

(Mehegan, Miles)

8 - Stella By Starlight

(Washington, Young) 

#1 to #4:

John "Johnny" Mehegan (piano), Charles Mingus (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey, January 30, 1955

#5 to #8:

John "Johnny" Mehegan (piano), Chuck Wayne (guitar),

Vinnie Burke (bass), Joe Morello (drums).

Recorded in New York City, June 10, 1954

Five-Star Collection... Art Farmer

Art Farmer

Modern Art

The young jazz musician — if he is at all serious about making his self-expression a vocation with meaning to others beside himself — has to learn a lot.

He must first, of course, know his horn, know it until, to paraphrase Yeats, it's difficult to tell where the musician ends and the horn begins. He must battle the problems of technique until his fingers execute what he thinks as he thinks, no matter how challenging or difficult the thought. And to stay fed in contemporary music, the young jazzman will be confronted with a greater variety of challenges than all of King Arthur's court dreamt of.

He must be able to read — not only precise commercial arrangements for diverse record dates but the new and unexpected turns of the growing number of modern jazz writers.

He must, unless he limits himself to only one idiom and one familiar group of players, be able to improvise over a wide and sometimes dizzying range of conditions.

When — and if — he has mastered all this, his basic problem begins. He must find himself, must be — relatively — "original." Once he has achieved enough skill to be noticed at all, the critics are likely to start calling him 'electric' or 'derivative'; other hornmen respect him but wait to hear what he's doing that they haven't heard before; and most important of all, he himself becomes intensely concerned about releasing and developing his own "voice." It's at this point that the good, skillful players become separated from the others who go beyond proficiency to become the major stylists, the musicians who influence other musicians.

Art Farmer, after a long apprenticeship, has matured into one of the few trumpet players of his generation who is individual and who indicates a capacity for growth that will also make him an influence. Through the years, Art has sharpened his technique so that he can — and has — handled all manner of assignments from the funky, driving, soul-flexing of the Horace Silver Quintet through the polyphonic play of the Gerry Mulligan quartet to jagged experimental scores at Brandeis University, Carnegie Hall and Cooper Union.

While absorbing all this experience — and much more — Art has consistently enlarged and strengthened his own musical personality until he now cannot be accurately categorized as a member of any "school" but his own. In addition to a tone that he has deepened and burnished through the years, his conception has become a direct reflection of himself. Like the man, it is thoughtful; lyrical unto — at times — a brooding introspectiveness; intensely emotional; and devoid of superfluity. *Nat Hentoff (from the liner notes)*

Here, through eight tracks covering two sides of an LP, is a set that must rank among the finest, most musical, most stimulating, and most satisfying of the year.

Three Down Beat new stars — Farmer, Golson, and Evans — literally shine with a creative brilliance that, at times, is just unbelievable. I found, too, that this quintet greets a ballad not as something to be bulled through or played with, but as a vehicle for lyrical expression. In fact, if there is one word which sums up this LP it could well be "lyrical."

Some tracks are simply beautiful. Farmer, Golson, and Evans play with warmth and deep feeling on Darn That Dream, The Touch of Your Lips, and Like Someone in Love. Every track has some superlative playing, but I found that these were extraordinary. Perhaps because the tunes are ballads and are treated as such. When jazzmen can make their horns sing as these men do, it is a rare and moving experience in jazz. The older generation of players could do it, and very well. Some of our generation can, but mostly they tend to fall into devices or tricks with time to get through the tune.

Hear, for instance, the lovely muted fills Art blows behind Golson's soulful, melodic playing of Someone in Love, then Farmer's flowing muted solo, and Benny's Hawk-like coda.

Farmer has been maturing steadily as a musician. He is interested in music and in learning. He absorbs and builds on what he has absorbed, rather than parroting it back because it happens to be hip or in the current idiom. I feel, on the basis of his performance here and of in-person hearings lately, that he is certainly one of the very few young players today who will have a great deal to do with molding the future of jazz. The often abused phrase, a major talent, must be applied to this man.

Golson, too, has come along handsomely in the last year or so. His one written contribution here, Fair Weather, is another of those melodic, oddly nostalgic themes which he creates so well. His playing is imaginative and bright, and he turns what could be a hip phrase into something quite fresh almost as a matter of course.

Evans, yet another increasingly important jazzman, displays again the workings of a creative mind. Note his solos on Weather, Breeze, and I Love You.

Addison Farmer and Dave Bailey give the soloists firm and pulsing support. Bailey, as usual, is tasteful and affirmative in his work.

The stereo version just brings more life into this excellent performance. Don’t miss this one.

*Dom Cerulli (Down Beat, January 8, 1959 [5 stars])*

1 -  Mox Nix

(Art Farmer)

2 - Fair Weather

(Benny Golson)

3 - Darn That Dream

(James Van Heusen, Eddie DeLange)

4 - The Touch Of Your Lips

(Ray Noble)

5 - Jubilation

(Junior Mance)

6 - Like Someone In Love

(James Van Heusen, Johnny Burke)

7 - I Love You

(Cole Porter)

8 - Cold Breeze

(Wade Legge)

Art Farmer (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor sax),

Bill Evans (piano), Addison Farmer (bass), Dave Bailey (drums).

Recorded at Nola's Penthouse, New York City, September 10, 11 and 14,1958

Five-Star Collection... Herb Ellis

Herb Ellis 

Nothing But The Blues

For the past few years, there has been, among the young moderns, a renewal of reverence for the blues. For the insecure and the confidence men who tried to bore into the in-group, the blues seemed to take on the guise of a new approach to Zen Buddhism as interpreted by Jack Kerouac. They accordingly used the word "funky" as a shibboleth, but their hard-breathing gave them away; because they played the blues like Sloan Wilson writes fiction.

The point is that the blues can’t be forced. It comes naturally out of a Horace Silver or Thelonious Monk or Sonny Rollins or Barney Kessel or Herb Ellis, or it doesn't come out at all. Herb has it; there were times during ensemble lessons at The School of Jazz in the Berkshires in the summer of 1957 when Herb (the faculty played alongside the students) would play something so down home, so earthily visceral that everybody would fall out, with Dizzy Gillespie usually roaring the loudest.

(...)

And this blues-bursting date is, I feel, Ellis' best album yet and one of the most directly fulfilling sessions of the year. Roy Eldridge feels that the context of the record brought about Stan Getz's "playing the greatest I've heard him. He comes from the old school too, you know, and he proved it on that date. Most of the younger cats can't get with but one thing; Getz can fit into something like this too. Like Royal Garden and Tin Roof. He fitted there". In fact, in this session, everybody fit, and if you want to know what all this talk about the blues means, this is one place you won't get a bum steer into the semantics of hipster theosophy. *Nat Hentoff (from the liner notes)*

Gather 'round, children, and listen to the message of the blues. The whole story is right here in eight, eloquent preachments by as fine a quintet of wailers as can be assembled.

There is so much strong, red meat here that to attempt to detail its high spots would take up more space than we've available. But some of the more memorable moments include Herb's bongo-like obligato to Roy's open horn on the galloping Big Red's; the sweetly lyrical Getz tenor on Tin Roof, accorded unusual, gentle treatment; an amazingly easy and relaxed Soft Winds, and the muted trumpet in unison with single string guitar in the first chorus of Royal.

Herb seems everywhere at once, comping tastefully, riffing chords and single string behind the other soloists; pungently interjecting chorded comments, and, of course, discoursing lengthily on blues-matter in general in all his solos.

Luckily it was a good day for Stan and Roy, too. And, thanks to Ellis' alternating role, a piano is never once missed in the rhythm section. Brown and Levey take care of business in basic, no-nonsense fashion. One of the very best jazz albums this year. Don't miss it.

*John A. Tynan (Down Beat, October 16, 1958 [5 stars])*

1 - Pap's Blues

(Ray Brown)

2 - Big Red's Boogie Woogie

(Herb Ellis)

3 - Tin Roof Blues

(George Brunies, Paul Mares, Ben Pollack, Leon Roppolo, Mel Stitzel, Walter Melrose)

4 - Soft Winds

(Benny Goodman)

5 - Royal Garden Blues

(Spencer Williams, Clarence Williams)

6 - Patti Cake

(Herb Ellis)

7 - Blues For Janet

(Herb Ellis, Ray Brown)

8 - Blues For Junior

(Ray Brown)

Herb Ellis (guitar), Roy Eldridge (trumpet),

Stan Getz (tenor sax), Ray Brown (bass), Stan Levey (drums).

Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, October 11, 1957