Victor Feldman - Latinsville

© -Steven Cerra. Copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Judging by the number of sessions it took to complete, the original Latinsville! album seems to have been a rather difficult project. Now we get a better sense of the album's gestation with the inclusion of five tracks recorded at a pair of previously unknown sessions. A quintet gathered at Contemporary's studios over two days in December 1958, to begin work on Feldman's second album for the label. Producer Les Koenig got as far as assembling an album side before a decision was evidently made to abandon the material and start over with an explicitly Latin feeling. A search of our vaults for bonus material for this reissue yielded nothing usable from the 1959 sessions, but it did uncover that assembled reel, along with the December session tapes. The tape boxes themselves divulged dates, song titles and engineering credits. Contemporary's original ledger books supplied the final part of the puzzle by revealing the names of the musicians who were paid for the dates.”

—STUART KREMSKY, tape vault archivist

Although Latin rhythms are fairly common in Jazz today, they were still finding their place in the music in the 1950s.

The pace of acceptance was certainly accelerated by the big bands of Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente, Prez Prado, Xavier Cugart and Machito and the Mambo dance craze that they help to initiate in New York and throughout the country in the 1940s and 1950.

These burgeoning Latin rhythms were reflected in the Jazz big bands led by Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton and Shorty Rogers, the quintets of Cal Tjader and George Shearing, respectively, and in thematic recordings such as the Miles Davis - Gil Evans collaboration on Sketches of Spain.

Jelly Roll Morton claimed that the “Spanish tinge” has been an influential undercurrent in Jazz since its inception.

And while that may have been true melodically, it took a while before Jazz was actually set to Latin rhythm sections with an emphasis on the clave beat.

Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver’s Quintet, The Jazztet and other East Coast based groups and composers such as Hank Mobley, J.J. Johnson and Sonny Clark all had tunes that they played with a Latin Jazz “feel,” but few Jazz groups soloed over Latin rhythm sections which emphasized the clave beat, preferring instead to switch to the more metronomic 4/4 time after the Latin-inflected theme was stated.

Perhaps because all of the the instruments that he played were percussive - drums, vibes and piano - the late Victor Feldman was always interested in playing in  authentic Latin Jazz modes which are generally categorized as mambo, rumba, samba, and tango and the more hybrid forms of these rhythms generally grouped as Afro-Cuban, Salsa and Latin Jazz Fusion. He even dabbled with some of the more specialized Latin Jazz rhythms such as the Venezuelan Joropo with its emphasis on 6/4 time.

Latinsville[Contemporary CCD-9005-2], an album done much earlier in his career [1958-59], was Victor’s first, major recorded statement of his affinity for various Latin jazz styles. The music on it serves as an excellent example of Victor’s lifelong fascination with different rhythms and his uncanny ability to place them successfully in a Jazz context.

Another influence that helped spawn the original 1958-59 recording project was the great admiration that Victor had for Cal Tjader, both as a vibist and as a fellow drummer, and the Latin Jazz music Cal was then performing with his quintet.

Pianist Vince Guaraldi was a member of Cal’s group at that time and he and Victor were great friends from their stint together on the Woody Herman band [Vince even replaced Victor with the Lighthouse All-Stars for a time before returning to his native San Francisco in 1960]. Vince and Victor had many conversations about Latin Jazz, often demonstrating certain figures or phrases while playing “montuno” 5-note rhythmic patterns using claves [two small wooden rods about 8 inches long and 1 inch in diameter; they are typically made of rosewood, ebony or genadillo].

Victor was always experimenting with melodies that were not originally written as Latin Jazz tunes by playing them over various Latin beats. In a sense, this tendency became a unifying theme for all of the music on Latinsville.

In the following insert notes that he wrote for Latinsville [Contemporary CCD-9005-2], Leonard Feather, the noted Jazz author and critic comments about the preparations that went into the making of the recording.

“A twofold process of cross-pollination led to the creation of the music for this album. Victor Feldman, a Londoner born in 1934, grew up during a period when virtually no live American jazz was to be heard in his country; his entire knowledge of this art form, during his childhood far more exclusively a U.S. product than today, was acquired through the study of records and association with older British jazzmen who had gained their knowledge in a similar manner. But soon after he had settled in Los Angeles, Feldman became crucially aware of the Latin American and Afro-Cuban rhythms that were considered at one time to be as alien to jazz as jazz itself had been to the British. That he absorbed the Latin idiom as swiftly and intelligently as he had acquired the sensibility for jazz is made clear in this, his first all-Latin session.

"Of course, there was just a little of this kind of music around London when I was a kid," says Feldman. "When I was 15 I learned some African rhythms on a conga drum; my teacher was a drummer from Ghana, which was then called the Gold Coast.

"When I came to California, I was very much impressed by Machito when I heard his band. He was singing riffs to the trumpet section or the reeds, more or less making up arrangements right on the bandstand, and this had some of the spontaneous spirit of jazz. And I heard Tito Puente and found his group very

exciting from the rhythmic standpoint."

Victor recalls the Gillespie orchestra of the late 1940s as a significant factor in his growing awareness of the new trend. "While I was in England I heard some records of the big band Dizzy had at that time — the first band, to my knowledge, that ever united modern jazz improvising and writing with Afro-Cuban rhythms. I suppose everyone familiar with the modern movement in jazz knows by now that a lot of jazz musicians recorded with Afro rhythm accompaniment from the late Forties, including, of course, Charlie Parker."

For his own maiden venture in this challenging area, he says, "I tried to blend straightforward arrangements in the Latin and Afro-Cuban vein with the improvisations of the jazz soloists, and it seems to me that Conte Candoli, Walter Benton, and Frank Rosolino play with the swinging pulsation that they normally would with regular piano-bass-and-drums rhythm. Vince Guaraldi and Andy Thomas also play beautiful solos which to me are very Latin in flavor. As for my own work—well, with the conga and the timbales and the bongos and bass patterns, I found myself playing in a different rhythmical groove."

Most of the sidemen have had previous experience with Latin music. Candoli and Rosolino were involved as members of the Kenton band, which has had an intermittent Spanish tinge ever since the 1946 Artistry in Bolero. Walter Benton, whom Victor considers one of the most underrated tenor men on the West Coast (an opinion with which I agree emphatically), went to Japan with one of the Perez Prado units. Both Armando Peraza and Al McKibbon were extensively associated with Afro-Cuban music as members of the Shearing Quartet; McKibbon and Guaraldi have figured in Cal Tjader's many Latin moods. The other pianist on these sides, Andy Thomas, has gigged in the Los Angeles area with Latin combos.

The cross-fertilization process is underlined by using themes of non-Latin origin. Most of the melodies originally were not even intended for incorporation with the Latin idiom, though the titles and lyrics logically indicated the type of treatment Feldman's arrangements give them here.

"South of the Border," heard in this version as an amiable mambo, is a British song which was popular in the U.S. in 1939. Starting with a repeated riff and leading to solos by Feldman, Rosolino, and Benton, it sets the mood for the album with admirable assurance.

"She's a Latin from Manhattan" comes up in cha-cha-cha guise under the clock-like guidance of Frank Guerrero's timbales. The tune, which dates from 1935, has an elementary harmonic structure that lends itself well to the process of Cubanization.

"Flying Down to Rio," the title song of an early talking picture, dates back 30 years. The melody is notable for the contributions of Candoli, muted and open, in a lyrical mood, and for Feldman's skillful scoring.

"Cuban Pete" stems from the session using a strictly Latin rhythm section. Tony Reyes's bass solo bridging the first and second choruses was an idea that developed spontaneously in the studio. The tune was a hit among the yanquis in 1937.

"The Gypsy," a song that shares Victor's English origin, was imported to the U.S. soon after publication in 1945. The vibes work here typifies that effortless subtlety with which he stresses the appropriate mood using a slight shift of accent here, a grace note there. The tempo is quite slow, but curiously seems less slow than it would with a straight 4/4 beat.

"Poinciana," played by the large group, is subjected to an effective variation with Victor playing the main phrase of the melody unaccompanied. After a voiced statement of the usual tag to the chorus of the 1944 melody, Walter Benton takes over for a solo that maintains a straight jazz-oriented eighth-note concept, in contrast with the following Guaraldi and Feldman solos, both of which seem to be slightly more conscious of, though certainly never inhibited by, the complex rhythmic setting.

"Lady of Spain" is a song of whose English origin Victor was unaware when he recorded it. Written in 1931, it was originally a somewhat corny up-tempo waltz. Again the theme is fitted to the occasion via shifted accents and some of the most intense, driving Cuban rhythm section work of the entire album.

"Spain" was one of Isham Jones's first song hits, published in 1924. Except for a brief interlude by Guaraldi, the spotlight remains on the vibes all the way.

"Cuban Love Song" is not merely pre-Castro, it's pre-Batista. The late Herbert Stothart, a movie executive who co-wrote it in 1931, was also the composer of

"The Donkey Serenade." As on several other tracks, I was impressed by the Bags-like articulation of Feldman, as well as by the tenor of Walter Benton. The latter's excursion into double-time jazz, though brief, has soul and spirit and lends valuable contrast to the performance.

"In a Little Spanish Town" is another tribute to pre-Franco Spain, having emerged in 1926. The tonic-and-dominant basis of the melody again facilitates the conversion into a mood that seems closer to Havana than Madrid. Conte's solo here is noticeably affected by the Latin background.

"Fiesta" is a song of obscure origin; Victor found it in a Mexican folk music book. Paradoxically, the harmonic framework with which his arrangement equips it makes the tune seem as contemporary as anything in the album, mainly because of the C-to-E flat minor 7-to-A flat 7 gambit.

"Woody'n You" is a jazz composition by Dizzy Gillespie which he first recorded in 1944 with Coleman Hawkins. (It was dedicated to Woody Herman, who never got around to recording it.) As you might have expected, the jazz pulse beats fiercely on this track, with contributions by Candoli and Rosolino.

Latin music followers for whom this may be the first exposure to Victor Feldman are advised to check back on his career with Contemporary. Suite Sixteen displayed him on vibes, piano, and drums with various British groups (OJC-1768/C3541); The Arrival of Victor Feldman is his first American LP as a leader (OJC-268/C3549); he can be heard as a sideman with Leroy Vinnegar on Leroy Walks! (OJC-160/C3542); with Bob Cooper on Coop! (OJC-161/C3544, stereo S7012); with Shelly Manne on a Peter Gunn album (OJC-946/M3560). He is featured on piano on the four volumes of Shelly Manne & His Men at the Black Hawk (OJC-656/657/658/659/660, S7577/78/79/80).

—LEONARD FEATHER, May 17, 1960”

[These notes appeared on the original album liner.]

The Victor Feldman - Tom Scott Quartet

 In the late 1960s, Victor Feldman and Tom Scott led a quartet with Chuck Domanico on bass and Johnny Guerin on drums that featured regularly at Donte's on Lankershim Blvd, just up the street from the corporate offices of Universal Studios. On this track you can hear why the group rarely failed to tear up the place. Things get cooking at 0.58 minutes and Victor "explodes" at 1:18 minutes. Thank goodness that Gerry MacDonald had a tape recorder going so that all this great music didn't go undocumented. From my little perch at the bar, I can still see the smiles on everyone's faces whenever Victor, Tom, Chuck and Johnny performed at Donte's. Like most Jazz clubs it was dim, but this band literally "lit it up."

Victor Feldman and Frank Rosolino: The "Lost" Recordings

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

For about two years in the late 1950s, I had the pleasure of hanging out with pianist/vibist Victor Feldman and trombonist Frank Rosolino who were then regular members of bassist's Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse Cafe All-Stars in Hermosa Beach, CA.

These were my formative years in Jazz and I always thought of the many nights at I spent at the club listening to set after set of the Lighthouse All-Stars as my “undergraduate education.”

The drummer with the All-Stars at that time was Stan Levey When I mentioned to him something about lessons, he turned me over to Victor saying: “He even knows the name of the rudiments.” [Stan was just being defensive as he was self-taught and not all that technically conversant with “drum speak.” He just played his backside off instead.]

As to Victor's skills as a drummer, I soon found out that before he turned to vibes and piano, Victor had been a World Class drummer [think Buddy Rich - Yes, he was that fast].

The closing time for the club was 2:00 AM, but on weekdays, most of the patrons were gone by midnight. At the witching hour, the musicians sometimes congregated in the back of the club to relax, have a smoke and conduct Jazz 101 with aspiring, young musicians before playing a last set.

Often, Jazz 101 consisted of war stories and one night while I was sitting in the back of the club with Victor and Frank Rosolino, Victor told a heart-breaking tale of the “lost tapes” he had made a few years earlier with a rhythm section of Hank Jones on piano, Bill Crow on bass and Kenny Clark and Joe Morello on drums [they split the two, recording sessions].

Before leaving Woody Herman’s Big Band and settling in with Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars for a three year stint beginning in 1957, Victor had made a prior arrangement to record an album for Keynote Records and set about making arrangements for the date.  Bassist Bill Crow tells the tale of this ill-fated Feldman, Keystone recording session in his book From Birdland to Broadway [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 119-120].

“One night [in 1955] a young man sat at the Hickory House bar listening and smiling as we played [the Marian McPartland Trio featuring Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums]. When our set was finished, he introduced himself as Victor Feldman. The talented English vibraphonist had just arrived in New York, and had come to meet Marian. He said he liked the way Joe and I played together.

‘I’m doing an album for Keynote,’ Victor told us, ‘and I’d like you guys to do it with me. I’ve already sort of promised it to Kenny Clarke, so I’ll have him do the first date and Joe the second. I’ve got Hank Jones on piano.

Both dates went beautifully. Victor had written some attractive tunes, and he and Hank hit it off together right away. We couldn’t have felt more comfortable if we’d been playing together for years. Victor was glad to have the recording finished before he left town to join Woody Herman’s band.

The next time I ran into Vic, he told a sad story. The producer at Keynote had decided to delay releasing the album, hoping Victor would become famous with Woody. But the next Keystone project ran over budget, and when he needed to raise some cash, the producer sold Victor’s master tapes to Teddy Reig at Roost Records. Vic came back to New York, discovered what happened, and called Reig to find out when he planned to release the album.

‘Just as soon as Keystone sends me the tape,’ said Reig.

Vic called Keystone to ask when this would take place, and was told the tape had already been sent. A search of both record companies offices failed to locate the tape, and as far as I know it was never found. It may still be lying in a storeroom somewhere, or it may have been destroyed.

Since Keystone announced the album when we did the date, it was listed in Down Beat in their “Things to Come” column, and that information found its way into the Bruyninckx discography, but now that Vic and Kenny are both gone, that music exists as a lovely resonance in the memories of Joe, Hank and myself.”

Frank and I were horrified. “Some Christmas present,” Frank said, reflectively. He went on to say: “That better not happen with the tapes from the session we just finished.”

The recording session that Frank was referring to occurred on December 22, 1958 and while the outcome was not as irrevocable as was the case with the never-found tapes of Victor’s Keystone tapes, it DID happen that the Rosolino tapes were also, never released, at least, not until almost thirty years later [Frank died in 1978].

In 1987, Fantasy acquired the tapes from the December 22, 1958 Rosolino session and finally released them on LP as Frank Rosolino: Free For All [SP-2161]. The date was also released on CD in 1991 [Specialty Jazz Series OJCCD 1763-2].

Leonard Feather explains the story this way in his insert notes to the CD.

“Surprises of the kind represented by this album are as rare as they are welcome. The appearance of a hitherto undocumented album by Frank Rosolino makes a valuable addition to the discographical annals of an artist whose memory is cherished by admirers around the world.

His career seemed, on the surface, to have been reasonably successful. Born in Detroit in 1926, he came up through the big band ranks, playing with Gene Krupa, Bob Chester, Herbie Fields and Georgie Auld, then leading his own group in Detroit before joining Stan Kenton in 1952.

Two years later, he settled in Southern California and became, for several years, a regular in Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars in Hermosa Beach. His free-wheeling, extrovert style did not conform to the then prevalent image of West Coast jazz as tightly organized, laid back and somewhat derivative.

Moreover, Rosolino was known from the early days as an incurable comic, whose bop vocal on "Lemon Drop" with the Krupa band marked his first appearance on film. As Benny Carter once commented, "Frank was a fantastic musician, but behind that cut-up personality was a troubled man. He was like Pagliacci.”

Frank made his recording debut as a leader with a 1952 session for the short lived Dee Gee label. There were other dates for Capitol, Bethlehem and Mode, but by the mid-1960s the only available Rosolino album was a Reprise set that featured him mainly as a comedy singer. The existence of the present volume was unknown except to those who had taken part in it — and, particularly, the man who produced it, David Axelrod.

"Frank and I were excited about this album," Axelrod recalls, "because it was going to be the first hard bop album recorded and released on the West Coast. We wanted to get away from that bland, stereotyped West Coast image. We worked for weeks on planning the personnel and the songs. The results were terrific. It was a great disappointment to us both that the record, for reasons we never understood, wasn't released."

Rosolino confirmed this view in a letter he sent to Specialty some nine months after the session. "I feel it's the best album I have ever recorded; everyone who was on the date feels the same. I've played the dub for numerous musicians and they all think it's just great."

Harold Land, whose tenor sax shared the front line with Frank's trombone, was already well established as a proponent of the more vigorous California sound; he had toured with the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet in 1954-5 and went on to lead various combos in addition to working, off and on ever since 1955, in the Gerald Wilson Orchestra.

Victor Feldman, who had arrived from England in 1955 and settled in Los Angeles after touring with Woody Herman, has worked for many years in studios, often playing mainly percussion and vibes, but his jazz reputation (primarily on piano) is a formidable one. Two years after these sides were made he joined Cannonball Adderley; in 1963 he recorded and gigged with Miles Davis.

Stan Levey, one of the foremost bebop drummers of the 1940's, played with everyone from Dizzy and Bird to Herman and Kenton, then joined the Rumsey group at the Lighthouse. By 1972, tired of boring studio jobs, he gave up playing in order to concentrate on his growing success as a commercial photographer.

Leroy Vinnegar, born in Indianapolis, settled in Los Angeles in 1954 and has worked with innumerable groups led by Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Smith, Shorty Rogers, Buddy Collette, and the Crusaders.

Typical of Frank Rosolino's ingenuity is the opening cut; he tackled Love for Sale in 6/4, moving into a fast 4/4 for the bridge. His own solo and Land's establish immediately that this is a tough, no-holds-barred blowing session.

Twilight is a beguilingly pensive example of Victor Feldman's talent as a composer.

There is no improvisation here until the solo by Land, who also plays under Frank's eloquent excursion.

Frank deals with the melody, while Harold offers appropriate fills on Henry Nemo's Don't Take Your Love From Me. Note the easy moderate beat sustained behind Frank's solo, the typically inventive Land outing, and Feldman's evolution from single note lines to chords.

Chrisdee, an original by Stan Levey, was named for his sons Chris and Dee and is a bebop line based on a cycle of fifths, with a somewhat Monkish bridge. After Frank and Harold have adroitly negotiated the changes, there is a series of fours, with Leroy walking a passage and Stan in a couple of brief solo statements.

Stardust is Rosolino throughout, a masterful example of his approach to a well-worn standard into which he breathes new life. The verse is played slowly, the tempo picks up a bit for the chorus, and the beat is later doubled, with Frank's sinuous lines growing busier before he closes it out on the dominant.

Frank composed Free Fall the album's title tune as a funky blues theme that offers 24 bars to Leroy, four choruses (48 bars) to Frank, three to Harold and two to Victor before the theme returns, ending with a suddenness that was typical of the hard bop era.

Frank worked out the routine on There is No Greater Love, an Isham Jones standard that dates back to 1936 and is as much in use as ever at jam sessions a half century after its debut. The unison horns kick it off at a bright pace,- after Harold's and Frank's solos, Victor gets into a single-note bop bag.

Finally, Frank's own Sneakyoso provides the quintet with an ingenious vehicle, its attractive changes providing good opportunities for Frank to work out. Note the fine comping Victor furnishes for Harold Land before taking over for his own solo. The two horns engage in an exchange with Stan Levey before the head returns.

All in all, this is a superior, even superlative example of the genre of music it represents. Frank was right to be so proud of it. Talking to Stan Levey while preparing these notes, I was not surprised when he remarked: "I never heard anyone else quite like Frank. He put into his music much more than he ever achieved out of it. I remember this session well, and I'm happy it's being made available."

Sadly, Frank did not survive to see its release. … [He died under tragic circumstances] in November of 1978 …..

Free for All is a very welcome reminder of an exceptionally gifted artist who left us much too soon.”

Leonard Feather, 1986 (Leonard Feather is the Los Angeles Times jazz critic.)

Who knows Maybe one day, someone will find the tapes of Victor’s 1955 session for Keystone and I can change the title of this piece from “lost” to “found.”

Basin Street Blues

A brilliant reharmonization of this Jazz standard by pianist Victor Feldman. 

Miles never played better than when he was in a reflective mood. When he was, you could really hear what Gil Evans meant when he said that Miles "changed the sound of the trumpet."

With Ron Carter on bass and Frank Butler on drums.

Victor Feldman - Blindfold Test with Leonard Feather [From the Archives]

 © -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Regular visitors to these pages are by now familiar with the personal and professional relationship I had with Victor Feldman during his and my formative years on the West Coast Jazz scene in the late 1950’s. He was my teacher and my friend.

Victor, who passed away in 1987, was best known as an excellent pianist, vibraphonist and composer [he penned Joshua and Seven Steps to Heaven both of which were recorded by Miles Davis]. He also performed with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley’s quintet and recorded with trombonist J.J. Johnson’s quartet, before resettling in Los Angeles and becoming a fixture in the West Coast Jazz scene and a mainstay in the southern California studios.

What most musicians in the States were not aware of is what a brilliant career as a drummer Victor Feldman had before coming to the USA in 1956 to perform with Woody Herman’s Band primarily as a vibraphonist.

Woody knew. He knew he had a Buddy Rich-quality drummer in Victor and every night he would feature him in what was essentially a 10 minute solo on drums and congas on Mambo the Most [The Mambo swept the USA as a dance craze during Victor’s time on Woody’s Band although I would challenge anyone to dance to the stuff that Victor was laying down during his time in the solo spotlight].

Victor’s comments about drummers in England and Europe should be taken in this context - he knew what he was talking about. The fact that calf-skin drum heads were still in wide use in abroad should also be kept in mind [American drummers had already made the switch the plastic heads which held the tension better and as a result got a sharper more crackling snare drum sound].

At the time of Vic Feldman's last Blindfold Test (Down Beat, Dec. 22, 1960) he had been with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet for a couple of months. The association with Adderley, which lasted for nine months, was priceless in two respects.

It gave Feldman the most significant musical experience of his adult career, one from which he emerged an even better musician; and it earned him a degree of acceptance among jazz fans and critics that would have been hard to come by in any other surroundings.

For his latest test, I included a couple of items with special relevance for him: the Kenny Drew track includes his rhythm section teammates from the Adderley quintet; Woody Herman was his first employer after he arrived in this country almost six years ago; the Jazz Couriers, of course, include musicians he knew and worked with in England. He was given no information about the records.

The Records

1. Richard “Groove” Holmes. That Healin' Feelin' (from Groove on Pacific Jazz). Holmes, organ; Ben Webster, tenor saxophone; Lawrence Lofton, trombone. No bass.

“The organ player might have been Shirley Scott, but it sounded a little more to me like a man playing. I notice a Fender bass in there; that could have been Monk Montgomery. I don't know who was on tenor or trombone. The trombone player sounded as though he was very much influenced by Bill Harris. I think they got a groove for what they were trying to do. It came off well. Four stars.

2.  Woody  Herman. Panatela  (from The Fourth Herd, Jazzland). ZootSims, tenor saxophone;  Nat Adderley, cornet; Eddie  Costa, vibes; Al Cohn, composer,   arranger. Recorded  Aug. 1, 1959.]

I think that was Woody Herman's band, and the tenor player on the first chorus sounded a lot like Zoot. The trumpet sounded like Nat Adderley. The arrangement ... I don't know . . . sounds a little like Al Cohn.

I didn't like the recording; it was sort of echo-y. I don't know if that's the band Woody's been traveling with, because it sounds like they just got together for that date. The vibraphone player sounds like the one who plays with Buddy Rich — Mike Mainieri — I'm not sure. I've heard so many better, really swinging records by Woody. Two stars.

3. Kenny Drew. The Pot's On (from Undercurrent, Blue Note). Drew, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Louis Hayes, drums; Hank Mobley, tenor saxophone; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet.

I'll start with the rhythm section: I think the bass player's Sam Jones, the drummer sounds like Louis Hayes — I'm not sure, and the piano sounds like Barry Harris — here I'm not sure because I've heard him play much better than that.

I worked with Sam and Louis with Cannonball. Being with that group did me a world of good musically. The tenor player played like Sonny Stitt used to play, but I'm sure it's not Sonny. Could be Hank Mobley. The trumpet ... is there a trumpet player named Freddie Greenwood? The record was swinging . . . played well. Four stars.

4. Curtis Fuller. Chantized (from Boss of the Soul-Stream Trombone, Warwick). Fuller, trombone; Walter Bishop, piano; Stu Martin, drums; Buddy Catlett, bass.

I don't know who that is. Could be Benny Green on trombone. If it is Benny, he sounds a little bit like Curtis Fuller. I thought it was kind of uninteresting because of the melody . . . the line . . . the rhythm all the way through. Some pieces can have the rhythm all the way through and be interesting, but this was monotonous.

The soloists didn't have much to say. Coltrane can do this kind of thing and make it interesting. Two stars.

5. Cannonball  Adderley. A Foggy Day (from Cannonball EnRoute, Mercury). Adderley, alto saxophone; Nat Adderley, cornet; Sam Jones, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums; Junior Mance, piano. Recorded,1957.

That was Cannonball and Nat Adderley. The record must be two or three years old; I think Sam's on bass, and the piano player could have been Junior Mance. I don't know the drummer; it didn't sound like Louis. I enjoyed listening to it ... it was good . . . not exceptional.

The group has changed. Nat and Cannon both play differently now — like all musicians, the longer we play, the more we hope we improve. They're much greater now, yet the standard and the feeling are still there. Now they have more excitement and group feeling. They had more when I was with them than they do here. Three stars.

6. The Jazz Couriers. Whisper Not (from Message from Britain, Jazzland). Ronnie Scott, tenor saxophone; Tubby Hayes, vibes; Kenny Napper, bass; Phil Seamen, drums; Terry Shannon, piano. Recorded in London.

Sounds like an English group. The tenor player sounds like Tubby Hayes, but he didn't take a long-enough solo for me to really tell. The ensemble playing sounded like Tubby. The vibraphone player . . . that threw me a curve . . . gets a very nice sound. I don't know anyone in England who sounds like that. There's a vibraphone player in this country, whom I heard a couple of years ago, who's very good — Bobby Hutcherson — but I don't know how he sounds now.

The recording ... the general sound ... the drums ... the whole rhythm section . . . make me believe that it is an English or a European group.

Quite a few musicians, orchestrators, and arrangers I've spoken to here feel that they record better in England. I don't agree. The difference is partly the recording and partly the performance. The weak point of English jazz is the rhythm sections. They don't have the same environment musicians do here. They don't see these musicians all the time in person and talk to them and discuss things as they can here.

Drummers in England play in clubs which are underground and very damp, so they have a terrible job tuning their drums; it really makes a difference. Rhythm is improving though. There are a couple of wonderful bass players — Kenny Napper — in fact, that could have been him here — and Lenny Bush. I heard some good drummers, too, when I was there a couple of months ago. I recognized Terry Shannon on piano. Two stars.

7. John Coltrane. Every Time We Say Goodbye (from My Favorite Things, Atlantic.) Coltrane, soprano saxophone; McCoy Tyner, piano.

That was John Coltrane playing soprano sax, and the piano player was McCoy Tyner. It's a very pretty tune; I like the changes Tyner plays. All I can say is that it was pleasant. The saxophone sounded out of tune on a few notes.

I hate to be unenthusiastic, but I think this deserves three stars.

Source:

Downbeat Magazine

February 1, 1962