Rare And Obscure Argo Recordings (VIII)

Art Farmer

Art

For all the insistent cannonade of "new names" in jazz, relatively few players actually do become thoroughly and firmly established so that their reputations are secure throughout all the dust storms of changing jazz fashions.

Art Farmr, or example, has arrived. He is no longer a "promising" player. Over the past few years, he has demostrated a maturity of personal style and a consistency that make him unmistakably one of the major trumpet players.

Because of his total lack of complacency and his pride as a prefessional, Art will certainly continue to grow, but he has already accomplished the most difficult task for any jazzman — the attainment of a wholly individual voice.

This album, moreover, is the fullest and most complete evocation yet of Art Farmer as a soloist.

Art had been thinking about and planning for this set for a year before he went into the studio. "I wanted", he explains, "to do a very intimate session. I wanted it do sound as if I were just sitting and talking to someone with the horn, talking to just one person. The feeling was to be as if the horn were in the room, right next to the listener".

Over a long period of time Art picked tunes he liked, including several that are rarely if ever performed in jazz context. "I wanted it to be free though", he adds, "without tight, set arrangements. It was when we got into the studio that we worked out the form for each tune".

It's customary in a liner note to emphasize that the leader of the given album exploded in euphoria at how well the date came out. At it happens, Farmer is indeed very pleased by the session, but in his case approval is a rare phenomenon. Art is incorrigibly self-critical.

In the past, I've been associated with him in the production of albums and in writing the liners for some of his sets. Invariabily, he has pointed to places that could have been improved, tunes that should have been redone, and other imperfections in performances that many other trumpet players would have prized. This time, however, he feels he accomplished what he set out to do.

*Nat Hentoff (liner notes)*

During a career that spanned close to a half century, Art Farmer was well-known for his consistency as a soloist and a bandleader. This series of studio sessions from 1960, with pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Tommy Williams, and drummer Albert Heathe, find the trumpeter in great form, with the usually impeccable accompaniment one expects from Flanagan. Many of the rich ballads featured, including "So Beats My Heart for You", "Goodbye Old Girl", and "Younger Than Springtime", have fallen out of favor in the early 21st century, but Farmer's impeccable performances of these chestnuts sound timeless. A slightly jaunty take of Benny Golson's "Out of the Past" and a spirited rendition of "The Best Thing for You Is Me" also merit attention. *Ken Dryden*

A beautiful album of understated brilliance — one of Art Farmer's early shifts into the sublime, and an easily-blown batch of trumpet tracks that always takes our breath away! There's a sense of relaxed freedom here that's really tremendous — a difference from some of Farmer's more arranged, or more hard-blown moments of the 50s — and a real move into notes that are airier and more open — almost effortless at times, and played like nobody else! The group's a quartet — with Tommy Flanagan on piano, Tommy Williams on bass, and Albert Heath on drums — and the tracks are all in the four to five minute range, with Art crafting lyrically soulful lines over the top. Titles include "Who Cares", "Out Of The Past", "Younger Than Springtime", "That Ole Devil Called Love", and "Goodbye Old Girl".  *Dusty Groove, Inc.*

1 - So Beats My Heart For You

(Ballard, Henderson, Waring)

2 - Goodbye, Old Girl

(Adler, Ross)

3 - Who Cares

(George and Ira Gershwin)

4 - Out Of The Past

(Benny Golson)

5 - Younger Than Springtime

(Rodgers, Hammerstein II)

6 - The Best Thing For You Is Me

(Irving Berlin)

7 - I'm A Fool To Want You

(Herron, Sinatra, Wolf)

8 - That Old Devil Called Love

(Roberts, Fisher)

Art Farmer (trumpet), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Tommy Williams (bass), Albert Heath (drums).

Recorded at Nola Penthouse Studios, New York City, September 21, 22 and 23, 1960.

Rare And Obscure Argo Recordings (VII)

The Jazztet

The Jazztet And John Lewis

The idea of John Lewis writing for the Jazztet seems, at first blush, an improbable one.

Lewis' jazz writing in recent years has been confined largely to the Modern Jazz Quartet, of which group he is pianist and musical director. His other work — movie scores and similar large-orchestra music — has required a different palette than that available in small jazz groups.

The Jazztet, furthermore, is utterly unlike the MJQ in instrumentation, conception, and flavor. The MJQ is based on two percussion-melody instruments, vibraharp and  piano, which dictates one kind of sound. The Jazztet is based on three horns — trumpet, tenor saxophone, and trombone — which dictates a vastly different one.

The one area of similarity between the two groups would appear to present a danger, rather than an advantage: both are integrated,  controlled units whose music has sometimes tended to the conservative. They stand at the other end of the pole from all the tiresome freeblowing groups of today. 

But what would happen when you put the conservative John Lewis together with the Jazztet? I must confess that when Art Farmer mentioned that John Lewis was writing an album for the group, I had reservations. I feared the collaboration would produce some sort of apotheosis of gentlemanly reserve. Control there would surely be. But spontaneity and fire?

It gives me considerable pleasure to discover that my fears were groundless. For the John Lewis Album is, I feel, far and away the best, the freest, and the gutsiest album the Jazztet has yet  made.

Never has the group seemed more appealing than in this set of compositions and arrangements by John Lewis. I have no hesitancy in commending it to you. It knocked me out. 

*Gene  Lees (liner notes)*

We'll be the first to admit that the piano and compositions of John Lewis can sometimes be a bit stiff and academic — but that's definitely not the case on this great little record! The album features interpretations of Lewis' work by the great Farmer/Golson Jazztet — and is a pretty sweet batch of tracks that adds a lot of the emotion and soul that's usually missing from Lewis' music. Cedar Walton's playing the piano parts, which probably helps the groove a bit, and the group's tight hard sound puts in a "bottom" that you'd hardly hear when listening to John Lewis with the Modern Jazz Quartet. In fact, Lewis isn't even on the record — just billed in the title because he contributed the compositions.  *Dusty Groove, Inc.*

Side 1

1 - Bel

2 - Milano

3 - Django

4 - New York 19

Side 2

5 - 2 Degrees East, 3 Degrees West

6 - Odds Against Tomorrow

(All compositions by John Lewis)

Art Farmer (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor  sax), Thomas McIntosh (trombone),

Thomas Williams (bass), Cedar Walton (piano), Albert Heath (drums). 

Recorded at Nola Studios, New York City, December 20 and 21, 1960 and January 9, 1961.