The Jimmy Neeley Trio - Misirlou

James "Jimmy" Neely was one of the greatest unsung talents in soul jazz piano, a player who was quite respected amongst his peers, but who rarely got the chance to record. He led a local jazz quintet in the late 1940s, which included guitarist Mickey Baker in 1947/48. From the early 1950s he worked in New York City with Charlie Singleton (with whom his first recordings were made in 1951), also with the rhythm and blues singer H-Bomb Ferguson, as well as with Red Prysock and Roy Eldridge. In 1960 he released his debut album Misirlou (Tru-Sound Records), recorded in a trio with Michel Mulia (bass) and Rudy Lawless (drums). His next recording, in 1963, was the album The Now! Sound of Jimmy Neeley (Ali Records). In the 1960s he performed with his own trio in New York clubs and he also worked, among other things, on recordings by Betty Roche, Willis "Gator" Jackson and Etta Jones. The last recordings were made around 1969, when Neely recorded the album Pure Simplicity with string accompaniment. In the field of jazz, he was involved in eleven recording sessions from 1951 to 1969. *wikipedia.org*

The musicians who debut on this album call themselves The Jimmy Neeley Trio, and they mean exactly what they say. Very often, what passes for a trio is actually a series of piano solos with bass and drum accompaniment. But these three men are a co-operative unit, in both business and musical matiers. It is that way because Jimmy Neeley wants it that way, and it took him a long time and a good deal of work to get what he wanted. 

Neeley is thirty-two, but he has been working professionally for fifteen years. He has never considered being anything other than a musician, and has directed himself toward that goal for as far back as he can remember. His studies include time spent at Juilliard, Deau, the Chicago Conservatory of Music, and the Metropolitan School of Music. But, although, he is a pianist, he studied piano at none of those institutions. What he did study made him a thoroughly well-rounded and well-grounded musician: theory, harmony, composition, arranging, and also instrumental classes in flute and cello. All this time, he was studying piano privately. 

The obvious question is, what is the concept involved? Although all three men have enormous experience and technical resources (Mulia, for instance, has studied with one of the great bass virtuosos of all time, Charles Mingus) there is no dazzling display of technical brilliance to be heard on these songs. It is, rather, the mark of excellent musicians that ihey don’t feel the need to flaunt their virtuosity. And, it would not be accurate to call all of the music played here jazz. As a matter of fact, Jimmy Neeley himself insists that the music he plays is not completely jazz. He prefers the term "modern music", feeling among other things, that the jazz audience is too limited. for what he hopes to do. The music on this album is a fair sampling of the trio's current repertoire.

*Sidney Falco (liner notes)*

Side 1

1 - Misirlou

(Nicholas Roubanis)

2 - Gettin' A Taste

(James Neeley)

3 - Lament For The Lonely

(Esmond Edwards)

4 - Witchcraft

(Leigh, Coleman)

5 - Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

(Fain, Webster)

Side 2

6 - My One And Only Love

(Mellin, Wood)

7 - The Chase

(Tadd Dameron)

8 - Time After Time

(Cahn, Styne)

9 - Gone With The Wind

(Magidson, Wrubel)

Jimmy Neeley (piano), Michel Mulia (bass), Rudy Lawless (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, December 16, 1960.