Seldon Powell - Sextet • Featuring Jimmy Cleveland

Seldon Powell (1928-1997) was not an adventurer in either conception or sound. He was a solid, consolidated modern tenorist with a big, full tone, a superb beat, and largely interesting logically structured ideas. Powell plays with invigorating straight forwardness. He has the ability to take you with him all the way, in all tempos, and on all registers of his horn. On ballads, he combines lyricism with guts, and on the up tempos, he really digs in. Barry Ulanov mentioned in his excellent notes, that Powell had a ceaseless flow of melodic inspiration, a very precise description of what is so attractive, both in his playing and in these recordings. *Jordi Pujol*

When I first heard Seldon Powell, I enthused, because the boy from Brooklyn was such a happy throwback to the great days of the tenor saxophone. Tone and taste and a consummate ease on his horn, these were his virtues — and they stili are. The ability to make everything swing, that too. And no particular school ties, but just a fine blowing tenorman with a simple, smooth, and compelling modern style of his own. 

The Powell Style? A new school, maybe? A new sound that everybody will have to pick up on to stay au courant in jazz? No, schools are not made this way, only individuals. For the components of the Seldon Powell style are gifts, not gimmicks. They cannot be bought or sold, picked up or put down, and though perhaps they can be imitated, it will only be by a similarly well endowed musician. 

Most notable of the Powell talents, it seems to me, is the ceaseless flow of melodic inspiration. Simple enough stuff, I suppose, but so felicitously put together that one’s attention stays riveted to his lines, bar after bar. Sometimes it’s a countermelody. Sometimes it’s the tune itself, superlatively re-accented or de-accented to give it a sinuous new shape. Sometimes it’s a fill-in, a cadenza. Sometimes it’s a brief introduction to a solo, sometimes the wispiest of codas. But in every case, there is no doubt about the defining element: it’s the melodic line. Seldon thinks and plays that way, consecutively, note after note, in forward melodic motion, and that’s the way one hears him. *Larry Ulanov (liner notes)*

Side 1

1 - Woodyn' You

(D. Gillespie)

2 - She's Funny That Way

(Moret, Whiting)

3 - Lolly Gag

(S. Powell)

4 - Missy's Melody

(M. Gold)

5 - I'll Close My Eyes

(Reid, Kaye)

6 - 11th Hour Blues

(S. Powell)

Side 2

7 - Undecided

(Robins, Shavers)

8 - A Flower Is A Lonesome Thing

(B. Strayhorn)

9 - It's A Cryin' Shame

(Hoffman, Blake)

10 - Sleepy Time Down South

(L. & O. Rene, Muse)

11 - Button Nose

(S. Powell)

12 - Biscuit For Duncan

(S. Powell)

Seldon Powell (tenor sax); Jimmy Cleveland (trombone); Freddie Green (guitar); Roland "Hac" Hanna (piano); Aaron Bell (bass); Osie Johnson [#1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #8, #9, #11], Gus Johnson [#3, #7, #10, #12] (drums).

Recorded in New York City, 1956.