Happy Birthday, Gene Harris!

Pianist Gene Harris (1933 - 2000) recorded prolifically during his long career. He started out playing in Army bands during the early 1950s. In 1956, he formed The Three Sounds with Andy Simpkins on bass and Bill Dowdy on drums. (Actually, it was originally The Four Sounds, but saxophonist Lonnie “The Sound” Walker dropped out after a year.) The group recorded exclusively with Blue Note Records from 1958 to 1962, including LPs with the likes of Lou Donaldson and Stanley Turrentine (the quietly grooving Blue Hour). Harris had a very warm, rich-bodied sound to his playing, very bluesy with a gospel tinge, a style that epitomized Blue Note’s soul-jazz of the period.

     The Three Sounds continued recording through the 1960s with Verve, Mercury, and Limelight up until the group disbanded in 1973. Harris was in effect retired in the late 1970s, although he played locally to his home in Boise, Idaho. He returned to touring and playing in the 1980s after Ray Brown convinced him to join his trio. He recorded with Brown and as a leader until his death from kidney failure.

     One of my favorite Gene Harris performances is a Ray Brown LP called Summer Wind (Concord, 1988), a recording of a live date at Santa Monica’s Loa Club. Here, Harris is featured on several numbers, including terrific versions of “Li’l Darlin’” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (from the Broadway classic Show Boat). Here is the same lineup, with the addition of Herb Ellis on guitar, performing “Oh, Lady Be Good” during an appearance in Berlin in 1989.

I Like Ike

Saxophonist Ike Quebec, born August 17, 1918, was one of my favorite soul-jazz artists on Blue Note Records in the early 1960s. He had a full-throated sound (in the Coleman Hawkins vein), a sensuous and firm tone, rhythmically dynamic, and swinging. Quebec can be heard on breathy ballads, quiet bossa nova tunes, and more aggressive blues.

     He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and trained as a pianist and dancer, not switching to the tenor sax until his twenties. Early in his career in the 1940s, he earned his chops with a number of well-known bands and performers, including Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Cab Calloway, and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a sort of unofficial talent scout for Blue Note, helping to advance the careers of Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell.

     He struggled with drug addiction throughout the 1950s and recorded infrequently. However, later in the decade he started a comeback with Blue Note. He recorded a number of singles for the burgeoning jukebox market; a number of jazz labels were beginning to take note of the jukebox at this time, including Columbia with Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. Blue Note later released these Quebec sides as a two-CD set, The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions.

     In 1961 and 1962, he recorded some terrific albums, including It Might As Well Be Spring (1961), a collection of quiet ballads. Blue and Sentimental (1961) is probably Ike’s masterpiece. He and Grant Green on guitar really stretch out on this collection of originals and standards, with some wonderful bluesy soloing. The title tune and Green’s “Blues for Charlie” are standouts. My personal favorite is Soul Samba (1962), recorded shortly before Quebec succumbed to lung cancer in January 1963. Here, he is joined by Kenny Burrell for a program of sultry, Brazilian-tinged tunes. His playing sounds as if it is coming from somewhere deep inside - just listen to his original tune “Blue Samba” - Ike playing beautifully until the very end.

Happy Birthday, Hank Mobley!

Hank Mobley, born on this date in 1930, was a hard bop tenor saxophonist with a relaxed and melodic style. Instead of the hard-edged playing tone common at the time, he had a more sinewy sound, at least in the early and middle part of his career. Mobley himself described it thus: “not a big sound, not a small sound, just a round sound.” But he was a consistently interesting and inventive saxophonist with an assured ebullience in his playing. Despite a prolific recording career, his somewhat laid-back playing made him an under-appreciated musician and an underrated saxophone player compared to many of his peers.
     He was born in Georgia but grew up near Newark, New Jersey. Early on, he worked with Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie, and he also appeared on the landmark recording Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers (1955). Other appearances as a sideman in the 1950s included dates with Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Curtis Fuller, and Sonny Clark.

     Mobley is mainly remembered for his twenty or so albums for Blue Note Records as a leader, starting in 1955. These included some classic dates that epitomized the Blue Note sound of the era, including Soul Station and Roll Call (1960), Workout and Another Workout (1961), and The Turnaround and Dippin’ (1965). One of my favorite tunes from the period is “Dig Dis” from Soul Station, which displays the kind of tasty, cool groove that Mobley could achieve. He stopped playing in the 1970s because of lung problems and he died of pneumonia in 1986.

Reconsidering “The Sidewinder”

Trumpeter Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” is an example of familiarity breeding contempt. The 1963 hit tune, from the album of the same name, was used as the theme in Chrysler car commercials at the time. This was without permission from Morgan or Blue Note Records – threats of lawsuits caused the commercials to be quickly taken off the air. But even Morgan thought the tune was just “filler” for the album. This is a bit surprising because he desperately needed a comeback, as he was coming off several years of trouble due to a heroin addiction.
     “The Sidewinder” opens the album with ten minutes of great blues. The catchy rhythm is deep blues mixed with a Latin riff and is sustained throughout. Lee’s opening solo is on the showy side, but there’s also some wonderfully intimate playing, almost a talking quality to the trumpet. Joe Henderson follows on tenor sax with a melodious solo that is immediately recognizable. (The following year, Henderson would make another memorable guest appearance with a seminal solo on Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father.”) Barry Harris on piano and Bob Cranshaw on bass are also given ample room for bluesy solos in “Sidewinder.” Hey, “catchy” doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
     Blue Note tried to repeat the formula on later Morgan albums, attempting to capture the magic again with opening extended blues songs. This is part of what contributed to the dismissive attitude toward this tune/album. (And did we really need an album called The Rumproller?) Morgan continued to record prolifically throughout the Sixties until his untimely death in 1972, when he was shot by his common law wife at the club where he was performing, the unfortunately named Slugs’.

A Hoot - Fred Jackson

Tenor sax man Fred Jackson released only one album as a leader, but it was a fine one. Jackson got his start playing in Little Richard’s band in the early 1950s. Later, he toured with rhythm-and-blues vocalist Lloyd Price, who was most famous for the single “Stagger Lee,” and he also recorded with B.B King. In 1961, Jackson appeared on Baby Face Willette’s Face to Face for Blue Note Records. His inventive playing on this album - he uses the whole bag of sax tricks available to him - landed him his own date as a leader the following year.
     In February 1962, Jackson stepped into Van Gelder Studio and recorded Hootin’ ‘n Tootin’ with other Lloyd Price veterans – Earl Vandyke on organ, Willie Jones on guitar, and Wilbert Hogan on drums. The result is a bluesy classic. Jackson’s playing is a mix of hard bop, earthy blues, and soul-jazz. The first tune, “Dippin’ in the Bag,” is an uptempo blues with Vandyke comping on organ and Jones and Jackson both taking extended solos. “Southern Exposure” is a more lowdown affair, a slow swinger with Jackson laying down the blues in a quiet wail (if that’s possible). The album continues to vary between swinging and shouting ravers and slower, R&B-inspired jazz, all showcasing Jackson’s searching solos.
     Jackson had a second recording session in April 1962 with the same band, with the addition of Sam Jones on bass. Unfortunately, Hootin’ didn’t sell well and the tunes from the second session weren’t released. Fortunately, for the reissue of Hootin’ in 1998, Blue Note tacked on these seven tracks. Again, it’s a mix of burners such as “Stretchin’ Out” (what’s Jackson got against including final g’s?) and “On the Spot” with more low-down blues such as "Egypt Land" and “Minor Exposure” (my personal favorite of all fourteen tunes).
     Jackson later recorded with organist Big John Patton and then basically disappeared from the jazz scene. His bluesy and inspired playing on the sax from his all-too-brief stint as a jazzman is worth seeking out.

A Good Week for “Baby Face”

On January 23, 1961, saxophonist Lou Donaldson recorded Here ‘Tis, his first album as a leader with an organ quartet. He was trying to get a sound closer to the basic blues. “We tried to play the blues like they were originally played,” Donaldson stated. “Like a conversation with the instruments – just talking to each other.” For this session, he brought in a couple of new faces: Grant Green on guitar and Roosevelt “Baby Face” Willette on the B-3 organ. (He looks like a teenager, hence the moniker.) The results were just the kind of funky sound he wanted on both the driving songs like “Watusi Jump” and on the brooding title tune.

     Blue Note took notice of the newcomers. Five days later, Green recorded Grant’s First Stand, which was his debut album but, in spite of the title, actually his second session. Willette appears on this album as well. Two days after that, Willette recorded his debut album, Face to Face, with Green on guitar and Fred Jackson on sax. All of them shine on the album. Willette composed all but one of the songs, and they all have a propulsive, deep groove, provided by Willette on the organ with his use of sustained rhythmic notes. Jackson has a bluesy, showy style on sax that uses all the tricks in the book. And Green sounds heavy and funky on the guitar on “Goin’ Down” and flying on “Swingin’ at Sugar Ray’s.”
     Grant Green went on to be one of the stars of Blue Note. Willette, on the other hand, recorded only a handful of additional albums after this. Then, he largely faded from the jazz scene. He had always been an itinerate musician, touring with R&B and gospel groups in the Fifties and returning to this life in the Sixties before settling in Chicago. He died in obscurity in 1971 at the age of 37. Still, “Baby Face” had a spectacular debut here in 1961 and left behind a small legacy of great grooves.

In Praise of Mr. T

Tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh in 1934. He came from a musical family – his father, mother, and brother all played instruments. He played with rhythm and blues bands in the early 1950s before moving into jazz with Earl Bostic, Max Roach, and others. Throughout his career, he recorded with Blue Note, CTI, Fantasy, and other labels. He died in 2000.
     The original “Mr. T” is one of my favorite musicians, particularly for his Blue Note albums in the 1960s. He is underappreciated as a sax player, probably because of the more popular, cross-over material he did in the 1970s and 1980s. And perhaps he did become too commercial - success has its price, I guess. My feeling is that the material Turrentine did with Blue Note is so outstanding that he deserves reconsideration.
     Turrentine did some excellent work as a sideman with organist Jimmy Smith. Back at the Chicken Shack, Midnight Special, and Prayer Meetin’ show a great rapport between the two as they exchange bluesy solos. Also as a sideman, Turrentine appeared on one of my favorite albums of all time, guitarist Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue (1963). This deeply grooving album is the very definition of the Blue Note sound at this time, and Burrell and Turrentine try to top each other throughout. There’s not a dud on the album.
     His albums as a leader with Blue Note are also winners, a kind of soul-jazz soundtrack for the Sixties. His first, Look Out!, contains some great blues licks and that big tenor sound of his, particularly on Stan’s own compositions “Little Sheri,” “Minor Chant,” and the title tune. He has a very masculine and smooth tone, never harsh. A more subdued but still bluesy Stan can be heard in small group settings on Up at Minton’s and Blue Hour.
     One of my favorites is his album Hustlin’ from 1964. The great B-3 organist Shirley Scott (also Stan’s wife at the time) and Kenny Burrell set the ground groove, with Stan bubbling above on sax. It opens with a great version of “Trouble” followed by a gospel-tinged number by Scott called “Ladyfingers” with powerful solos by both Scott and Stan. “Goin’ Home,” based on the Largo movement from Dvorak’s New World Symphony, provides a lilting and melancholy coda to the album. Hustlin’ showcases both his fat burnished sound on ballads and his more earthy, blues sensibility.
     Perhaps Turrentine was more of a straight-ahead player than a virtuoso, but his polished yet blues-drenched solos provided a distinctive voice on the sax for half a century. His place in the jazz pantheon ought to be moved up an octave.