Gerry Wiggins - Relax And Enjoy It!

Some jazz —like the music of Gerry Wiggins on this album— can be listened to at several levels, depending on your inclination. It can be background music to conversation, reading, experiments in the time-lag of afterglow, research projects in mood-induction and lovesmanship. It can also be —if you wish it— the kind of jazz which requires digging and which rewards digging with something new each new time you dig it hard. 

Gerry Wiggins is the kind of jazz musician who is unspectacular, who is not a brash innovator nor in any sense a flamboyant character. Yet it is musicians like him who provide the great body of jazz music with its virtues. 

It may be most indicative of his value that he has been one of the very best accompanists to come out of jazz, in a class with Jimmy Jones and Bobby Tucker. Being an exceptional accompanist for singers requires the sort of sensitivity, the type of warm and helpful personality, the courage to sublimate that personality momentarily in the interests of a good performance, that is inherent in all jazz artists. It is an integral part, really, of all good jazz, almost without exception, that 

mutual aid and sensitivity to the other artists should be the basis for playing. No really good jazzman is without it and all good accompanists have it to a high degree. I guess what I am trying to say here is that Gerry Wiggins on this album, and every time I have had the pleasure of hearing him in person, plays in a manner which I find totally pleasing. I have had the album some time now before writing this essay. I have found it rewarding to play at any hour of the day or night and surrounded before and after by any kind of music. It can stand on its own at all times; isn’t that the mark of good music of any kind? 

If you want lyricism, it is here; if you want an introduction to the blues to regenerate your feelings, it too is here. If you like to swing without stomping, you can. If you want to let the background of your conversation be lightly filled with pleasant sounds, this, too, is possible. And if you want to sit with your ear glued to the speaker and listen to the music and to nothing else until there is no thought in your mind but the impressions and sounds of the lines of Gerry Wiggins and Joe Comfort and the rhythms of Jackie Mills, this can be your pleasure. *Ralph J. Gleason (liner notes)* 

Side 1

1 - Narcissus

(Ethelbert Nevin)

2 - Frankie and Johnny

(Traditional, arr.Gerry Wiggins)

3 - One For My Baby

(Mercer, Arlen)

4 - Lady Is A Tramp

 (Rodgers, Hart)

Side 2

5 - Serenade In Blue

(Warren, Gordon)

6 - My Heart Stood Still

(Rodgers, Hart)

7 - Just Squeeze Me / Satin Doll

(Duke Ellington)

8 - Blue Wig

(Gerry Wiggins)

Gerry Wiggins (piano), Joe Comfort (bass), Jackie Mills (drums).

Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, October 10, 1956.