Phineas Newborn, Jr. - The Once and Future Piano Wizard - [From the Archives]

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“There has always been a tendency among music experts, and by no means only in jazz, to harbor misgivings about technical perfection. The automatic-reflex reaction is: yes, all the notes are there and all the fingers are flying, but what is he really saying? What about the emotional communication?

Art Tatum at the apex of his creative powers suffered this kind of treatment at the hands of a not inconsiderable proportion of the critics. Buddy De Franco, of course, has been a consistent victim. Phineas has been in similar trouble, and not because of any lack in his ability to transmit emotion but possibly, I suspect, because of the listeners' reluctance or inability to receive it. Nat Hentoff, in the notes for Maggie's Back in Town, pointed out that Phineas has "harnessed his prodigious technique during the past couple of years into more emotionally meaningful directions!" True, though conservative; I would lengthen the harness to four or five years. During that time, too, the technique has taken on even more astonishing means to accomplish even more incredible ends — witness one ploy that is uniquely remarkable: the ad lib use of galvanic lines played by both hands two octaves apart. Today, bearing in mind that Bernard Peiffer is French and Oscar Peterson Canadian, it would not be extravagant to claim that Phineas has no equal among American jazz pianists, from any standpoint, technical or esthetic. He is a moving, swinging, pianistically perfect gas.”

- George Wein, the impresario who founded the Newport Jazz Festival, wrote these thoughts about Phineas and his music in 1956 as the liner notes to Phineas’ first album for Atlantic Records Here is Phineas [#1235; reissued on CD as Koch 8505].

“I was on tour with him for two months. He was as scary as you can get. They ruined him by making it hard for him because they said he was the new Art Tatum and nobody was Art Tatum but Art Tatum . Phineas Newborn Jr. was the New Phineas Newborn Jr. A Monster Jazz Pianist.”

- Terry Gibbs, Jazz vibraphonist and bandleader

“I remember when he showed up in New York in the early 1950s. He sounded so great.”

- Bassist Bill Crow

The “they” in Terry Gibbs; comments above were the New York Jazz critics who, for the most part, were very dismissive of Phineas Newborn Jr. when he first made the New York Jazz scene in the mid-1950s, although, to be fair, some greeted his arrival in much the same way as did bassist Bill Crow.

Sadly, twenty years later when  ROBERT PALMER published the following in  the New York Times  APRIL 21, 1978, not much had changed and a certain sadness and melancholy continued to surround Phineas and his music.

“When Phineas Newborn Jr. sat down at the Village Gate's piano last weekend, it was the first New York had heard from him in more than a decade. During the middle and late 1950's he was widely regarded as one of the most brilliant pianists in jazz. Nat Hentoff wrote that “he probably has more command of the piano technically than any of his jazz contemporaries.” 

In the liner notes to the first Newborn album, George Wein, who plays piano in addition to producing the Newport Jazz Festival and is not given to superlatives when discussing other keyboard artists, compared Mr. Newborn very favorably to the late Art Tatum.

During his period in the jazz limelight—roughly from 1956, when he first opened at New York's Basin Street, through the early 60's —Mr. Newborn recorded for Atlantic, RCA Victor, Roulette, and Contemporary. His music continued to develop, but he lost some of his critical support. Writers began saying his playing lacked emotional depth and commitment, that it was too facile and flashy. More seriously, there were personal and health problems, and Mr. Newborn returned to his home in Memphis.

He had a rough time there. At one point, just a few years ago, he was mugged and badly beaten. Several fingers were broken. Yet as soon as his hands were out of the casts he was in a local studio, recording material for his first album since the 60's, “Solo Piano,” released by Atlantic in 1975. And it was through Memphis friends, including the saxophonist Fred Ford and the lawyer Irvin Salky, that he was able to turn to full‐time performing. Since 1975 he has made several appearances in Los Angeles and the first of what promises to be a number of Japanese tours—he is well loved in Japan and recorded a new album there this year.

But New York is the test for a jazz artist and Mr. Newborn, who does not seem to have lost any of the dazzling proficiency he commanded in the 50's, was looking forward to coming back for some time. Tonight and tomorrow night, shows begin at 10 P.M. and midnight, with the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) opening for Mr. Newborn who appears alone on Sunday 9 P.M. The Village Gate is at the corner of Bleecker and Thompson Streets. Admission is $5.50 with one‐drink minimum.

Mr. Newborn is especially looking forward to renewing his working relationship with Jamil Nasser, a Memphisborn bassist who used to be known as George Joyner. “He worked with me for four or five years,” the pianist explained. “before he joined Ahmad Jamal's trio. He had been working with B.B. King, and I introduced him to the jazz scene.” The drummer will be Ray Mosca.

This writer first encountered Mr. Newborn in Memphis during the summer of 1975. He is a small, wiry man with quickly darting eyes and a gnomish face, and although he is friendly enough, one soon realizes that he is painfully shy. He is one of those musicians who speak most eloquently through their music, and at this encounter he spoke eloquently indeed, rippling through absolutely stunning versions of standards and jazz originals at the grand piano in a recording studio.

This month, after his return from Japan, Mr. Newborn gave an informal recital for a group of music students at Memphis State University and stayed afterward to answer questions about jazz and about his career. The shyness was still noticeable, but so was a new brightness and interest in give and take. When he was asked about his family and early years he was positively expansive.

Mr. Newborn was born in Whiteville, Tenn., in 1931 and was already a gifted instrumentalist by the time he was in his early teens. His father, Phineas Newborn Sr., led a big band at the Flamingo Club on Memphis’ Beale Street. As a teen‐ager, the younger Phineas played saxophone, trumpet and vibraphone in the band as well as piano. His brother Calvin played guitar and his brother's wife sang and played piano and trombone.

Because he formed his style at a very young age, Mr. Newborn fell under the spell of the old masters, primarily Art Tatum, before he heard the newer sounds of modern jazz pianists like Bud Powell. As a result, he became an orchestral, two - handed piano player, and although he absorbed the harmonic and rhythmic innovations of the modernists easily, he has always been something of an anomaly compared with other jazz pianists his age, most of whom followed Bud Powell's lead and concentrated on right‐hand single‐note lines, with the left hand providing chordal punctuations.

Another explanation for Mr. Newborn's somewhat different style is the years he spent backing rhythm-and blues musicians. He played on the first recordings by the bluesman B.B. King, providing intricate filigree behind Mr. King's guitar and vocals, and performed professionally with the hands of Willis Jackson and Saunders King. “All during the time I was in high school,” he says, “I would go out during vacation time and play gigs around the mid‐South. Then in 1956 I went to New York and organized my own quartet, and we worked out of New York City, playing the jazz circuit on the East Coast.”

Mr. Newborn spent several years in New York City, recording prolifically and working often at Basin Street and Birdland, and several more years in Los Angeles before he returned to Memphis. Of the next 10 years he has little to say; the important thing is that he is back, healthy and playing superbly.

When he was asked this week about critics’ ‐comments that his playing lacked feeling—this is the only negative criticism his playing has ever received—he thought for a minute before answering.

“I remember getting reviews with that type of criticism in them,” he said. “It never bothered me so much. When I had Jamil and Calvin in my band, that band had a very nice feeling. We won a Grammy for an album we made in 1958; that was a comfortable group. Later, playing with various musicians I wasn't familiar with, the music might have come out sounding like it was lacking in feelings, I guess.” With Mr. Nasser back in his band and his return to New York, Mr. Newborn's performances should have feeling to burn.”