The Hank Bagby Soultet - Opus One

Clarance Henry "Hank" Bagby was born in Denver, Colorado in 1922 or 1923 and died in Modesto, California on December 11, 1993. He began his musical life as a singer and performed here and there in the Midwest and on the West Coast in the 1940's. It was during the late 40's in San Francisco that he took up the saxophone. He began playing with local players such as pianist Kenny Drew, and the Farmer brothers (trumpeter Art and bassist Addison), drummer Frank Butler and others around Los Angeles and became sort of an underground musician in a world of underground musicians. If you have never heard of Hank Bagby, even if you are a devoted Jazz buff, there's no shame. Bagby worked alongside some Jazz giants like Dexter Gordon, Jack Sheldon and various other greats in Onzy Matthews' big band which demonstrated his qualifications as a player but made no recordings. The only time this writer ever heard of Bagby was sometime in 1960 in Down Beat Magazine reading the only article on pianist Elmo Hope. The article was called "Bitter Hope" and was written by John Tynan. It summed up Elmo's frustrating 4 years in Los Angeles with a few bright moments thrown in. Mr. Hope was highly critical on the whole West Coast Jazz scene but had high praise for players such as Harold Land, Frank Butler, Leroy Vinnegar, trumpeters Dupree Bolton, Stu Williamson and others and mentioned that he's been working in a quartet that he co-led with Hank Bagby. He had high praise for Bagby. Soon after the article was published, Elmo and his new wife Bertha headed for New York. No recordings of the Hope/Bagby Quartet surfaced and that was it.

The Hank Bagby record was done for a one-shot label in Los Angeles in 1964. The label was Protone Records. It's his only album and a damn good one. It appears to have been done in two different sessions. One of the six original compositions by Bagby has Hank on tenor saxophone with Chuck Foster on trumpet, Dave MacKay on piano, Gary Driskell on bass and Al Levitt on drums. MacKay and Levitt are little known but MacKay played with Don Ellis' big band and Levitt has played with a variety of musicians like Lee Konitz and Stan Getz. The other two are unknowns. The rest of the 5 tunes have bassist Al Hines and drummer Charles "Chiz" Harris replacing Driskell and Levitt while the others are the same. Chiz Harris was very well known in the L.A. area and performed with a multitude of bands. That is the makeup of The Hank Bagby Soultet. The album called Opus One is his only recorded legacy and he proved to be a very solid player with a good sound that reflected a Rollins/Land/Gordon influence. The only other information on Bagby is that he eventually moved to Modesto, California and worked as a musician and a substance abuse counselor for the California Government until he retired. He was 71 when he died in 1993.

*Gavin Walker*

There's always more hardbop out there than expected. Live and learn. Die and reincarnate as the insect from Kafka's Die Verwandlung, crawl on the pavement of Sunset Boulevard and get squashed on the star tile of Hugh Hefner before, to cite Kinky Friedman, you were able to bug out for the dugout. Come back again as Mahatma Gandhi, slip into suit and tie and invest in big data. Be ashamed of yourself. Nothing to be ashamed of if you’re Hank Bagby. Hank Bagby is ok. But is Opus One an album we should be ashamed of having ignored for so long? No not exactly. It's not a milestone of mainstream jazz. But then again it’s about time it gets the attention it very well deserves.

The pulse of the album is pretty contagious, Jazz Messengers-like in spots. Moreover, both "Dee Dee" and "The Great Wall" wouldn't have been out of place on Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers albums. Perhaps most striking, the typical hard bop format of quintet line-up featuring sax and trumpet, blues-based repertoire and medium tempos is strengthened by a number of exotic flavors, the melodies of Soul Sonnet and Iborian (Nairobi spelled backwards) in particular.

Obviously, Bagby was a good writer. As a tenor saxophone player, his big hard tenor sound is exciting but his lines have a tendency to somehow pass by unnoticed. Trumpeter Chuck Foster is more impressive. His bright tone and sparkling lines lift up the fresh set of tunes. Even better is pianist Dave MacKay, who provides pulsating backing with a combination of strong-willed chords and pesky lines. As a soloist, without exactly imitating them, he’s somewhere between McCoy Tyner and Horace Silver. Not a bad place to hang around. *flophousemagazine.com*

One of our favorite "lost" albums ever – an amazing small combo jazz session that rivals the best that 60s Blue Note or Prestige had to offer! The group's led by tenor player Hank Bagby – an artist we only know from this record, but who has a rich sense of imagination that comes out right from the start – not just on his well-penned tunes for the record, but also on his inventive arrangements, and his way of leading the sharp combo through the perfect realization of his musical vision! Bagby's tenor solos alone are worth the price of admission – but the record's a cooker that really gets equal energy from the whole ensemble too – trumpeter Chuck Foster, pianist Dave MacKay, bassist Al Hines, and drummer Chiz Harris – perfect throughout on original tunes that include "Dee Dee", "The Great Wall", "Soul Sonnet", "Kiss Me Quigley", "Iborian", and "Algerian Suite". *dustygroove.com*

1 - Dee Dee

2 - The Great Wall

3 - Soul Sonnet

4 - Kiss Me Quigley

5 - Iborian

6 - Algerian Suite

(All compositions by Hank Bagby)

Hank Bagby (tenor sax); Chuck Foster (trumpet); Dave MacKay (piano); Gary Driskell [#1], Al Hines [#2 to #6] (basses); Al Levitt [#1], Chiz Harris [#2 to #6] (drums).

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, 1964.

• The Fourmost Guitars •

Jimmy Raney • Chuck Wayne • Joe Puma • Dick Garcia 

The Fourmost Guitars

The Fourmost Guitars, was a 1956, 12-inch release from ABC-Paramount that featured four different top jazz guitarists of the period.

At first glance, I thought it was akin to one of those Savoy samplers featuring a range of different artists who recorded for the label. But on closer inspection and a bit of research, it seems to be a more sophisticated package. Here's how I believe this album came to be:

In 1956, when producer Creed Taylor left Bethlehem to join ABC-Paramount as head producer of the jazz division, he must have been given tape from recording sessions held the previous year. In all likelihood they were recordings from initial sessions to be held over multiple days but never completed. Perhaps they were done for singles or 10-inch LPs just as the record industry was switching to the 12-inch format.

Somewhat puzzling is the timing. Several of these sessions were held prior to ABC-Paramount forming in September 1955. Either way, the material was shelved or put on hold until the artists could be rounded up again to finish what was started.

I'm guessing that when Creed gave a listen, he realized many were quite good. Included in the stack of tape reels were three different sessions led by different guitarists — Jimmy Raney, Chuck Wayne, and Dick Garcia and Joe Puma.

As he listened, Creed probably leaned back in his chair and concluded there were two ways to go. Bring in the different artists to complete enough tracks for three different 12-inch albums, which wouldn't be easy given the schedule of musicians at this level back then. Or simply take the tracks that existed and create a guitar album. Creed chose the latter. The result was The Fourmost Guitars.

The cover featured an image of four guitars ablaze at night on a sandy beach, an eye-catching allegory signaling to the buyer that the guitarists playing inside were red hot. The back cover is telling. For one, while Creed was given credit in the bottom right-hand corner as the album's producer, his famed oversized signature hadn't yet begun to be used.

Also interesting is that the cover design was credited to Fran Scott, who was Tony Scott's wife at the time. She was an ABC-Paramount art director and would work closely with Creed on the covers at the label until 1960, when he founded the Impulse label for ABC.

As for the music, what we have here are fascinating examples of superb mid-1950s jazz guitarists backed by different instrumental configurations.

The swinging guitarists' tasteful chords and lines are impossibly great. I'm always astonished at how many terrific jazz guitarists there were on both coasts in the 1950s. Clearly there was plenty of work to go around. On this album, we have the roundness and lyrical wanderings of Wayne, the plucky determination of Raney and the low-register togetherness of Garcia and Puma, especially on "Time Was". *Marc Myers*

Since approximately the end of World War II, the guitar has increasingly come into its own as a solo instrument of stature in the world of jazz. The late Charlie Christian is credited with opening the way during the Thirties and early 'Forties. The tradition has since been carried on by such people as Billy Bauer, Jimmy Raney, Bill DeArrango, Chuck Wayne, Barney Kessel, and more recently, Tal Farlow, Joe Puma, Sal Salvadore, Herb Ellis, Dick Garcia, etc. Toward this álbum.

The Fourmost Guitars, four of the best practitioners of guitar jazz have contributed.

Jimmy Raney is one of the most widely known and influential of the modern jazz guitarists. Jimmy has played under such leaders as Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Terry Gibbs, Buddy De Franco, Stan Getz and Red Norvo. For the past year or so he has been a member of Jimmy Lyon’s Blue Angel house trio. His guitar can be heard on numerous recordings.

Although he has been employed for the past couple of years as accompanist to singer Tony Bennett, Chuck Wayne can be remembered from the Fifty-Second Street days following World War II. Chuck has played with numerous jazz groups in addition to his own. He is an alumnus of the early George Shearing Quintet and the great Woody Herman band of the late Forties which recorded the "Sequence In Jazz" album.

Joe Puma is thirty years old and a native of The Bronx. A family man (Joe has a wife and two daughters), he has stayed as close to New York as possible. His experience includes tenures with Joe Roland, Artie Shaw, Louis Bellson, Don Elliott and Herbie Mann, among others. In the past couple of years Joe has done considerable recording work and has moved steadily toward wider recognition. 

Dick Garcia is the youngest of the four guitarists in age (he is twenty-five), but by no means the youngest as far as talent is concerned. Dick has played with George Shearing, Tony Scott, Joe Roland, and is currently touring with Ray McKinley’s band. He is a prolific composer and has broad tastes in music (and a particular fondness for Spanish folk music). *Tom Stewart (liner notes)*

The Fourmost Guitars is actually a compilation of three separate groups recorded especially for this Paramount LP from the mid-'50s. The first guitarist, Jimmy Raney, is heard on four tracks with trumpeter John Wilson, pianist Hall Overton, bassist Teddy Kotick, and drummer Nick Stabulas. Raney composed two originals, including the snappy bop vehicles "Two Drams of Soma" and "Scholar's Mate" (the latter referring to being checkmated in chess in just four moves), along with intricate arrangements of the standards "Gone with the Wind" and "Yesterdays". Guitarists Dick Garcia and Joe Puma play together on four tracks with bassist Dante Martucci and drummer Al Levitt. Without a pianist or horn, their collaboration is a more easygoing affair, though no less enjoyable. Finally, Chuck Wayne is accompanied by pianist Dave McKenna, bassist Oscar Pettiford, altoist Dave Schildkraut, and drummer Sonny Igoe on three songs. The interplay between Wayne and Schildkraut is delightful in the uptempo setting of "If I Ever Love Again". Like many Paramount albums, this LP has long been a collectible and seems to be an unlikely candidate for reissue.

*Ken Dryden*

Side 1

1 - Two Dreams Of Soma

(Raney)

2 - I'm Old Fashioned

(Kern, Mercer)

3 - You Stepped Out Of A Dream

(Brown, Kahn)

4 - Time Was

(Prado, Luna)

5 - Scholar's Mate

(Raney)

6 - Easy Living

(Robin, Rainger)

Side 2

7 - Ain't Misbehavin'

(Waller, Brooks)

8 - Gone With The Wind

(Ahlert, Young)

9 - Li'l Basses

(Garcia)

10 - If I Love You Again

(Oakland, Murray)

11 - Yesterdays

(Kern, Harbach)

#1, #5, #8, #11: 

Jimmy Raney Quintet

Jimmy Raney (guitar), John Wilson (trumpet), Hall Overton (piano), Teddy Kotick (bass), Nick Stabulas, drums. 

Recorded in New york City, February 23, 1956.

#2, #4, #7, #9:

Joe Puma - Dick Garcia Quartet

Joe Puma, Dick Garcia (guitars), Dante Martucci (bass), Al Levitt (drums).

Recorded in New York City, December 18, 1955.

#3, #6, #10:

Chuck Wayne Quintet

Chuck Wayne (guitar), Dave Shildkraut (alto sax), Dave McKenna (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass), Sonny Igoe (drums).

Recorded in New York City, February 17, 1956.