What better way to segue into this second of Ray Brown’s last-quarter-of-the-20th-century trios than to use its pianist Gene Harris’ thoughts about his predecessor Phineas Newborn, Jr. as revealed in the Blindfold Test of the June 20, 1963 edition of Down Beat magazine:“This is the greatest thing that ever happened to jazz – [Phineas is] the greatest pianist playing today. In every respect he’s tremendous. He is just beautiful. A wonderful jazz musician.”
As was the case with his efforts in not allowing Phineas Newborn, Jr. to pass into relative obscurity, we also have Ray Brown to thank for talking Gene Harris, who had settled in Idaho in the 1970s, out of a premature retirement in 1982.
As was the case with Ray’s long association with pianist Oscar Peterson in the decade of the 1950s, Gene Harris also had a similar, lengthy musical involvement during this same period as the pianist in the Three Sounds with Andrew Simpkins on bass and Bill Dowdy on drums. With its heavy emphasis on a gospel-influenced, blues sound, the group specialized in what some have referred to a “soul-jazz” and was well-documented through its many records on the Blue Note label.
The Three Sounds (in a variety of configurations) recorded and performed into the mid-1970s when Harris decided to quit [quite suddenly, according to some sources] the music business and transition into semi-retirement at his home in Boise, Idaho.According to C. Michael Bailey writing in
“In 1983, just when he thought he had been forgotten, bassist Ray Brown appealed to Harris to return to the studio and stage. Harris joined Brown's trio for a score of notable recordings before leading his own trios and small groups through the late 1980s, recording for the Bay Area-based Concord Jazz. At the close of that decade, Harris was approached by Andrew Whist, then president of the Phillip Morris Jazz Grant, to lead an all-star big band on a world tour. This resulted in two superb big band recordings that, added to his earlier Tribute to Count Basie mark Harris as a great large band arranger and leader.”
Strictly speaking, Gene’s first trio recording with Ray was The Red Hot Ray Brown Trio [Concord 4315] was not Gene’s first recording with Ray, but it was his first “trio” recording as a member of The Ray Brown Trio.
It is a set made up of standards such as Have You Met Miss Jones?, Street of Dreams, and That’s All, a lovely bossa nova treatment of Jobim’s Meditations and a wonderful romp through Brown’s blues original entitled Captain Bill, the trio offers polished arrangements largely based around vamps and riffs that serve to launch Harris into funk-inflected, solos escapes.And Harris can really wind it up with huge locked-hands chordal passages, tremolos, and most importantly, his sensitive use of dynamics to build solos that attain house-rocking climaxes. The result is blues-oriented, Sunday-come-to-meetin’ soulful piano trio Jazz that has everyone in the audience at the Blue Note in New York testifyn’ its approval.
A few years after Harris joined Ray Brown to form what Leonard Feather has called – “… one of the most naturally compatible threesomes ever to go public with their creative impulses,” Ray acquired a business interest in THE LOA, a club located a few miles from the beach in Santa Monica, CA.
In 1988, not surprisingly, the trio recorded Summer Wind: The Ray Brown Trio – Live at the Loa [Concord Jazz CCD-4426]. Here’s a review of it by Ken Dryden that appeared in www.allmusic.com:
`”Ray Brown has many great contributions to jazz as a leader and a sideman, but one additional way in which he helped jazz was his encouraging Gene Harris to give up his early retirement and go back out on the road. The pianist was a part of Brown's groups for several years before he formed a working quartet and became a leader for good once again. This 1988 concert at a since-defunct Santa Monica night club (co-owned by Brown) finds the two, along with drummer Jeff Hamilton, at the top of their game. A phone ringing in the background distracts momentarily from Brown's opening solo in his composition "The Real Blues," during which Harris repeats a bluesy tremolo, which may be an inside joke about the early distraction. Harris take a blues-drenched approach to "Mona Lisa" before giving way to the leader's solo, while his lyrical approach to "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" is shimmering. Hamilton's soft brushes are prominent in "Little Darlin'," but his explosive playing provides a powerful pulse to the very unusual strutting take of "It Don't Mean a Thing." This extremely satisfying CD is warmly recommended.”And Chip Deffaa had these observations to offer about Ray, Gene and Jeff in his liner notes to the original vinyl release of this recording:
“Brown’s colleagues are Gene Harris, who plays a lot of piano – rich, full-bodied, and not so overly-refined as to have the life squeezed out of it – and Jeff Hamilton, one of the stand-out drummers of the latter-day Woody Herman Herds. Brown doesn’t hold his sidemen back. Harris notes: ‘There’s a lot of musical respect between Ray and I, on the bandstand and off. What’s important is that each musician can put as much in the song as possible.’
Hamilton says Brown ‘is one of the best leaders I’ve worked for; he lets you find your own way, like Woody did. A lot of leaders will not do that. When I joined the trio, he said, ‘OK, just play; I’ll let you know when it gets in the way.’ Hamilton recalls he initially tried playing safely, conservatively. ‘Ray said: “Go ahead and play the drums. That’s what I hired you for.” Most trios have a lighter touch. At first, I was trying to play lightly. I found out very quickly, it’s a little big band.’”
What I found particularly engaging about the trio’s work on this album is contained in Jeff Hamilton’s observation: “… I found out very quickly, that it’s a little big band.” As is the case in a big band setting, each tune played by Ray’s trio is framed in a very accomplished arrangement which has interludes and other motifs to add contrasts and shading between the solos, shout choruses and well-scripted finales. A little big band, indeed.Not to take anything away from Mickey Roker, and perhaps it is because of his big band drumming experience, but Jeff Hamilton adds so many additional dimensions to the trio’s performances.
His drums are tuned to a sound that is full and deep, with cymbals that match harmonically [blend in; don’t stand out or clash with the other instruments]. He instigates unique beats such as the rock-infused, marching drum figure that forms the introduction to Duke’s It Don’t Mean a Thing. These distinctive beats serves to give many of the more familiar tunes a new lift and spirit. With an understanding of piano, he plays musically and melodically. And he swings – consistently and constantly! Jeff Hamilton is Jazz drumming at its best.
Ed Berger, Curator of The Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, has characterized Gene Harris’s style as:
“a fascinating amalgam of varied influences. Having assimilated the two-handed blues and boogie of early idols Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Freddie Slack, he added the fluidity of Oscar Peterson, and seasoned the mixture with a hint of Erroll Garner’s timing and sly humor. Above all, Harris is a master of the blues, with the tools and imagination to weave endless variations on that timeless and universal pattern.”
Harris instills the blues into everything he plays whether it’s the use of a single note, quarter note triplet phrase that impels a full chorus of his solo on Milt Jackson’s Bluesology on the Summer Wind album or in a funky gospel interpretation that completes transformed the Gershwin evergreen – Summertime – on the Bam Bam Bam CD [Concord CCD-4375] which the trio recorded live at the 1988 Fujitsu-Concord Jazz festival in Japan.In his www.allmusic.com overview of Gene Harris’s career, C. Michael Bailey is so impressed with Harris’ performance of Summertime that he advises the purchaser of this recording to:
“Skip directly to the seventh selection and listen to a definitive reading of the Gershwin classic “Summertime.” Harris explores all of the song's hidden treasures, breaking into a crowd-pleasing Albert Ammons boogie woogie.”
Aside from Gene’s sparkling rendition of Summertime, Bam Bam Bam also contains two very listenable [and quite remarkable] drum solos by Jeff Hamilton on Victor Feldman’s Rio and Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia. And Ray gets the solo spotlight with a lovely Arco treatment on If I Loved You.
Here are Leonard Feather’s discerning insert notes to what, in my opinion, ranks as the very best recording by the Gene Harris-version of The Ray Brown Trio:“Ray Brown is a man of many images, a wearer of several hats. Though his primary identification remains that of a nonpareil bassist, he has also established himself as a composer (his "Gravy Waltz" won a Grammy award), an entrepreneur and a talent scout.
In this last capacity we owe him a special debt for his major role in bringing Gene Harris, surely one of the most exciting blues-oriented pianists around, out of semi-obscurity in Idaho. He had a steady job in Boise until Ray began luring him away for a series of jobs that culminated, in 1987, in his triumphant Tribute to Count Basie all star big band session (Concord Jazz CJ-337).
Carl Jefferson, of course, was the other key figure in the Brown-Harris alliance. Late in 1988 Ray, Gene and the redoubtable young drummer Jeff Hamilton were on tour in Japan, playing ten concerts of their own in addition to taking part in Jefferson's Concord Festival unit. During that time, this session took place before an audience that was exceptionally enthusiastic (needless to say, none of those applause sounds had to be amplified).
"The Kan-i Hoken Hall is a big auditorium:' Brown recalls, "around 2,000 people, and we really had them with us all the way. This was one of those nights when everything came together."
The Brown original now known as F.S.R. (For Sonny Rollins) began as a rehearsal of Rollins' own "Doxy" on a record date with Milt Jackson. "Then," Ray says, "I wrote this other theme as a sort of pre-out chorus for 'Doxy,' and it came off so well that I thought, why not make a separate tune out of it?" The basis is a 16 bar chord pattern that goes back decades before either Brown or Rollins.
Put Your Little Foot Right Out is a simple piece based on just two chords (tonic and dominant), probably of traditional origin, but best known in jazz circles through Miles Davis's recording, then under the title "Fran-Dance." Note Gene's subtle behind-the-beat tactics, the perfect time and creative force of Ray's solo, and the agreeably subdued ending.Rio is one of a group of songs sent to Brown by the late Victor Feldman. "I liked a lot of Victor's tunes," Ray says, "particularly one called 'The Haunted Ballroom' and this one, which was new to me." Rio moves from a bluesy vamp into a fast, samba-esque theme in F Minor, with Gene displaying mighty chops, Jeff and Ray trading ideas, and Jeff soloing with the discretion that has earmarked him as the most tasteful drummer of his generation (at 35, he has been in steady demand since the late 1970s, when he worked with Monty Alexander and Woody Herman).If I Loved You is a 1945 Richard Rodgers melody, serving here as an ideal vehicle for Ray Brown's Arco bass. The spotlight then switches to Gene Harris for a version of Summertime that was embellished with enough breaks, blues moments and other touches to assure that this would suggest a funky, humid summer.
Days of Wine and Roses finds the men playing this 1962 Mancini standard in what Ray aptly calls a scaled down big band style.
Dizzy Gillespie's imperishable Night in Tunisia undergoes a transmogrification here. I designed it:' Ray says, "mainly as a vehicle for Jeff, for a marvelous hand drumming exhibition. We kept going back and forth, around rather than on the melody."
Bam Bam Bam is a blues, with Jeff's introduction suggesting the title. Gene and Ray have long been masters of the blues; certainly neither of them can recall how many blues they have recorded over the years, but it may well average out at one to a session. Again you will be transported by the phenomenal togetherness of this unit; essentially it's three minds that think as one.
During the past two years it has been my good fortune to hear Brown, Harris and Hamilton, both as a trio and in various other configurations, at the Loa Club, a Santa Monica rendezvous in which Ray was an active partner. With the release of this album, observers around and beyond this country will be able to share the exultant joy conveyed by what must be one of the most naturally compatible threesomes ever to go public with their creative impulses.”
Judging from the audience reactions on these in-performance recordings by Ray’s trio with Gene Harris, it appears as though the following comments about Gene by Scottish guitarist Jim Mullen who later toured with him in the 1990s are spot on as to how this effervescent performer “went about his business” as “an old-school jazz entertainer:”
“Gene used to say that these people have come out to see us, and it’s out job to give them a fantastic time. He used to say at the end of the evening, ‘if you leave here with a smile on your face, remember that Gene Harris put it there.’ I’ve never seen anyone turn a room of strangers into family that way. We never rehearsed. He’d do this big rubato solo piano introduction with no clue as to what’s coming up. Then he’d just start playing and you had to be ready to jump in there. That’s how he wanted it.” [From Richard Cook, Blue Note Records: The Biography, London: Secker & Warburg, 2001, p. 234].
With the issuance of 3-Dimensional [Concord CCD-4520] in 1991, Gene Harris would make his last recording as part of the Ray Brown Trio [although Gene Harris would continue to record with Ray and for Concord in a variety of settings in the 1990s].Richard Cook & Brian Morton in The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Edition [p.207] had this to say about it:
“Vintage stuff from the very best of Brown’s groups. This line-up has the easy cohesion of Oscar Peterson’s trios, and Brown’s busy lines often suggest Peterson’s approach to a melody. Following on form from an Ellington melody, Coltrane’s ‘Equinox’ … is a rare stab at a post-bop repertoire, and the group handles it comfortably.”Expanding on the tile of the disc, Fred Bouchard of Down Beat offered these apt, opening remarks in his insert notes:
“The sassy triumvirate of Jeff Hamilton, Gene Harris and Ray Brown has earned the stature, cultivated the variety, and accrued the experience that make every tune they play sound multi-dimensional.”
The little big band that Jeff Hamilton spoke of is out in full force on this one with kicks and fills everywhere present on the medium cookers like Ja-da and You Are My Sunshine, more of Jeff’s unique beats, this time in the form of a Gumbo Hump’s New Orleans Processional Band drum cadence that should have your hips gyrating in no time, and on a rousing Cotton Tail finale to a seven minute Ellington medley with Ray’s huge, booming bass sound driving it all home.That three virtuoso performers on their instruments could form such a tight-knit trio is a compliment to the musical integrity and greatness of Gene, Ray and Jeff, respectively. These guys listen to one another and find ways to urge the utmost creativity out of each another’s playing. The listener comes away enthralled and stimulated having heard piano-bass-drums trio Jazz at its best. What they have to put on display is beautifully encapsulated in the 3:45 minute version of Time After Time that closes this recording – perhaps we could call it a Jazz Time Capsule?
As previously noted Gene Harris left Ray’s trio and was replaced by the young pianist Benny Green, a protégé of Oscar Peterson [was this Ray’s way of coming full circle and ending his trio Jazz career where it began?]. Before we leave Gene, perhaps these thoughts about him by C. Michael Bailey might serve well as closing remarks:
“Throughout the 90s, Harris was given free reign to record how he wished. The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD opined that Harris always ended up making the same record...but that was all right. Gene Harris' music always sounded as if it had a smile on its face as big as the one Harris himself wore while performing. That type of sunshine can never be dimmed. Gene Harris died on January 16, 2000 while awaiting a kidney transplant from his daughter. His beaming personality illuminates all through his recorded legacy.”
… To be continued
The tray plate notes for Please Send Me Someone to Love contained the following synopsis:
"For a little more than a half century, there was a series of evolutions in keyboard jazz, which originated in ragtime, then was marked by the successive advent of stride, with its volleying left hand; horn-style piano, characterized
A year later, in 1964, I went out on a rare limb to declare unequivocally in Down Beat, "Newborn is the greatest living jazz pianist"
In order to provide Phineas with a rhythm section that would offer intuitive support to his unpredictable improvisations, it was necessary to find a bass player who would have instant empathy with the other two participants. This is an unnecessarily roundabout way of saying Ray Brown. if one can rate Phineas the greatest living jazz pianist, a similarly strong case could be made for Ray Brown as the greatest bassist, and for Elvin Jones as the greatest drummer. With three such players, things happened naturally and spontaneously, with just an occasional word of instruction or guidance from Phineas. it took very little time to make a trio of three musicians who had never before worked as a unit.
The material selected, with two exceptions ("Little Niles," and "Brentwood Blues"), all stemmed, by accident rather than design, from the 1940-50 period, when the 12- and 32- bar frameworks and the 4/4 meter still prevailed. it does not require a 7/4 or 9/8 beat, nor a theme 23 in measures long, for an improvising musician of Phineas's caliber to show that he has kept up to date.
"Black Coffee," introduced by Sarah Vaughan in 1948, has since become a standard ballad, more often used vocally (with Paul Francis Webster's fine lyric) than instrumentally, though the Sonny Burke melody has an elegant, Gershwinesque quality that Phineas captures to perfection. Notice particularly his use of the left hand to fill gaps, and the dramatic impact of that A-flat 7 chord at bar 21 of the chorus.
As previously mentioned, the material that was eventually released ten years later as Harlem Blues [Contemporary S-7634; OJCCD-662-2] came from this same 1969 recording session. The reasons for the delay as well as a brief annotation about each of the tracks on the album are nicely capsulated in the following insert notes by John Koenig, the son of Les Koenig, the originator of Contemporary Records.
Phineas had recorded with Ray (Teddy Edwards and Howard McGhee TOGETHER AGAIN, Contemporary S-7588), but hadn't recorded with Elvin. Ray hadn't either, but he had played with him a year or so earlier at the Monterey Jazz Festival, of which he was then the music director. The occasion was the formation of a Gil Evans band for the festival which, afterward, traveled to Los Angeles for a week long stay at Shelly's Mannehole, which was "wild" according to Ray.
The session was conceived as a means to display Phineas as piano soloist with the bass and drums taking accompaniment roles, rather than as an integrated trio, where the three instruments interact on a more equal level. it underscores the genuine musicianship of Ray and Elvin in that they understood this, and despite their prodigious creative gifts, managed to contain their soloist inclinations while still maintaining he essential intimacy the musical context required. Still, neither was to be entirely denied, as is apparent when one listens to Elvin's fours on Ray's Idea, or Ray's stunning soliloquy at the beginning of Tenderly.
To be sure, Phineas was appreciative of the level of his company. I recall that after we dropped Elvin and Keiko off at their hotel on the evening of the first session, Phineas remarked to my father: "I have nothing hut the utmost respect for Elvin and Ray." Still, this was Phineas' show all the way, as is evidenced by Ray's expression of appreciation after the tape machines had stopped rolling after the first take of the first day, Sweet and Lovely, when he remarked with a certain amount of awe, "We'll dub in the applause."
Little left the band in February, 1959, to work as a freelance in New York, but his association with Roach was renewed on several occasions, and he is heard making memorable contributions to several more of the drummer's albums, including The Many Sides of Max on Mercury (some of Roach's Mercury and EmArcy albums have long been hard to find, but Mosaic Records issued The Complete Mercury Max Roach Plus Four Sessions at the end of 2000), and two indisputable classics, We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite for Candid in August-September, 1960, and Percussion Bitter Suite for Impulse! a year later, in August, 1961.
The trumpeter lived only two more months after that session, and his death - coming as it did in the wake of Clifford Brown's tragic passing - shook Roach badly, and left him with the feeling that he might be a jinx for trumpet players. Little's contributions to Roach's music are an essential part of the trumpeter's recorded legacy, as is his work with the multi-instrumental reed and flute player Eric Dolphy. He first teamed up with Dolphy on record for Far Cry, a Prestige session recorded on 21 December, 1960, with a great rhythm section of Jaki Byard on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums.
They recorded again in a sextet session under Little's name in April, 1961, as we will shortly see, while a further meeting at The Five Spot a couple of months later produced a justly celebrated live album, recorded on 16 July, 1961, with a quintet which featured Mal Waldron on piano, Richard Davis on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums. This classic date was issued as Live! At The Five Spot, Volume 1 and 2, and Memorial Album, and should be regarded as essential listening (the recordings were also collected in a 3-LP box set as The Great Concert of Eric Dolphy, and incorporated in the comprehensive 9-CD box The Complete Prestige Recordings of Eric Dolphy). Dolphy will be the subject of a chapter in a subsequent book, and I do not intend to consider them in detail here, but as with the Roach recordings, they are essential to a full picture of Little's abbreviated career.
In the course of 1959-60, Little also recorded sessions with singer Bill Henderson, trombonist Slide Hampton, and a strong date with another Memphis musician, alto saxophonist Frank Strozier, on The Fantastic Frank Strozier Plus for Vee-jay, with Miles Davis's rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. Little was also captured with vibes player Teddy Charles in concert at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on 25 August, 1960, originally released as Metronome Presents Jazz in the Garden on the Warwick label (and later as Sounds of the Inner City on Collectables, credited to Little and Booker Ervin), and in studio sessions with Teddy Charles and Donald Byrd, among others, issued as The Soul of Jazz Percussion, also on Warwick.
The trumpeter was also heard with Max Roach in a studio version of his own 'Cliff Walk' from November, 1960, as part of the Candid All-Stars' Newport Rebels album, inspired by the breakaway festival set up that year in protest at the booking policy of the Newport Jazz Festival. Little was reunited with Roach for several dates in 1961, and also recorded with Roach's then wife, singer Abbey Lincoln, but only after both he and Dolphy had participated in John Coltrane's Africa/Brass sessions, cut for Impulse! in May and June, 1961. The core of his work as a leader, however, is contained in only four albums: Booker Little 4 & Max Roach (United Artists, 1958, later reissued on Blue Note); Booker Little (Time, 1960, later reissued as The Legendary Quartet Album on Island); Out Front (Candid, 1961); and Victory and Sorrow (Bethlehem, 1961, also known as Booker Little and Friend).
It was a strong (if rather indifferently recorded) debut, and Little is already identifiably an original voice in the making. The six tracks included three original tunes by the trumpeter, 'Rounder's Mood', 'Dungeon Waltz' and 'Jewel's Tempo', each allowing him and his colleagues to stretch out in exploratory fashion, always nudging outward at the boundaries of bop convention. Coleman is an excellent foil for his home town buddy, while Roach is majestic on drums.
The session provided the most concentrated example of Little's fluent, inventive, but always probing style as a soloist, and also a further showcase for his abilities as a, composer of original and engaging tunes (nor was he adverse to a spot of recycling - 'The Grand Valse' here is the same tune as 'Waltz of the Demons' on the Strozier album, and 'Booker's Waltz' on The Five Spot disc with Dolphy). His almost unaccompanied opening cadenza on 'Minor Sweet', with only Haynes's spectral drum fills shadowing the horn, is a perfect encapsulation of the rich sonority and precise articulation which was so characteristic of his playing, and the flowing solo which follows underlines the lyricism which was always intrinsic to his approach, as well as his imaginative and un-hackneyed phrasing.
His compositions and arrangements manipulate structure and movement in inventive fashion, as in the subtle harmonic ebb and flow between the more complex ensemble sections and the simpler solo passages on 'We Speak', the sharp harmonic contrasts underpinning 'Strength and Sanity', the alternating tempo changes of 'Quiet, Please' (inspired by a child's rapidly changing moods), or the sequentially shifting time signatures (cycling through 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, and 6/4) of 'Moods In Free Time' are all indicative of a thoughtful and experimental musical mind at work.
All but one of the tunes, the standard ballad 'If I Should Lose You', is by Little. They include a version of 'Cliff Walk', under the title 'Looking Ahead', with its sophisticated ensemble interplay for the three horns (to confuse matters further, a CD reissue of this album retitled that track 'Molotone Music'). The title track is among his strongest and most resourceful compositions, shifting tempo in subtle fashion to delineate its changing sections, while 'Booker's Blues' plays with blues form in imaginative fashion, shuttling between 8 and 12-bar forms.
In their publicity for the release of The Complete Blue Note Blue Mitchell Sessions (1963-67), Mosaic Records made the point that Mitchell suffered from being 'merely great at a time when the field was crowded with giants,' while Bob Blumenthal's session notes add the thought that Mitchell's relative neglect had its roots in 'his consummate professionalism. Most of the trumpeter's career was spent playing other people's music, and not always jazz in its most uncompromising form. His sense of what the circumstance called for was quite refined, which provides one explanation for why Mitchell was cherished as much by Earl Bostic and John Mayall as by Horace Silver, whose quintet featured Mitchell for nearly six years.'
Mitchell had met the Adderley brothers in the late 1940s in Tallahassee, and it was Julian who suggested the trumpeter to Riverside. Orrin Keepnews heard him play in Miami, and agreed to take him on. Mitchell played as part of the group on Adderley's Riverside debut, Portrait of Cannonball and cut his own debut album for the label, Big Six, on the following two days, July 2 and 3, 1958 (Keepnews has said that the presence of Miles Davis as a spectator in the booth on the first day of recording so unnerved Mitchell that they had to do the whole thing again the next day).
It is notable for containing the first recorded version of a tune which became a hard bop anthem, Benny Golson's 'Blues March', although it is better known in Art Blakey's subsequent version. Mitchell had known Golson in the Bostic band, and the saxophonist's typically clever and effective arrangement for sextet provided fertile ground for the excellent band assembled for the date. The big six in question included Johnny Griffin on tenor, Curtis Fuller on trombone, and a rhythm section of Wynton Kelly on piano, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.
While his work with Silver provided his most high profile musical outlet, Mitchell also picked up his share of significant sideman dates elsewhere, working with the likes of Jimmy Smith, Jackie McLean, Elmo Hope, Tina Brooks, Johnny Griffin and Stanley Turrentine, among others. He continued to record as a leader, cutting seven albums in all for Riverside in the period 1958-62, before switching to Blue Note in 1963.
Blue Soul, his third disc for Riverside, was recorded in September, 1959, and followed Out of The Blue, another strong set laid down in January, 1959 (Mitchell also cut an obscure disc for Metrojazz that year, co-credited in a patriotic color spectrum with Red and Whitey Mitchell!). The earlier album featured Blakey on drums, adding his usual drive to proceedings, and included an unorthodox but effective outing on 'The Saints Go Marching In'. Blue Soul was split between a sextet playing arrangements by Jimmy Heath and Benny Golson, and a quartet in which Mitchell blew on three cuts with the rhythm section of Kelly and the two Joneses, Sam and Philly Joe, a sure fire combination which delivers in energized, swinging style.
Mitchell (or more likely Keepnews) rang the changes by recording a 'with strings' session, Smooth As The Wind, cut over a couple of dates in 1960-61, which came off tolerably well, and provided a vehicle for the trumpeter's most lyrical moods, although the orchestral contribution seems as supernumerary as usual in these situations. A Sure Thing, recorded in March, 1962, also featured a bigger group, a jazz nonet with Clark Terry on trumpet, Julius Watkins on French horn, a four man reed section of Jerome Richardson (alto and flute), Jimmy Heath (tenor), and both Pepper Adams and Pat Patrick (best known as a long-term member of the Sun Ra. Arkestra) on baritones. Kelly and Sam Jones were joined by Tootie Heath, while Jimmy Heath's deft arrangements put a fresh spin on familiar standards like 'I Can't Get Started' and 'Gone With The Wind', the latter arranged just for quintet.
It was a quintet which featured on his last Riverside date, The Cup Bearers, in April, 1963. The line-up is essentially the Horace Silver group - Mitchell, saxophonist Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor and drummer Roy Brooks - but with Cedar Walton on piano. As Joe Goldberg explains in the sleeve note, Mitchell chose to play new compositions solicited from two up and coming jazz composers of the day, trombonist Tom McIntosh (who supplied the title track and 'Capers') and saxophonist Charles Davis ('Dingbat Blues'), alongside Walton's elegant 'Turquoise' and Thad Jones's 'Tiger Lily', all written for the session, which also contained imaginative treatments of two standards. The music has a rather deliberate air at times, as opposed to a fluid blowing feel (the title track and Davis's tune are exceptions), but it made a fine sign-off to his Riverside period.
Having recorded so often for Alfred Lion with Horace Silver, it seemed a natural enough step to cut a disc for the label in his own right. The first session they recorded, on 13 August, 1963, featured saxophonists Joe Henderson and Leo Wright and pianist Herbie Hancock (Bob Blumenthal points out the conceptual parallels between this session and Johnny Coles's Little Johnny C in the Mosaic booklet), but it did not see the light of day until 1980, when it was released as Step Lightly. By the time he returned to the studio, he had more or less inherited the Silver group, which the pianist had disbanded in March, 1964, but he had already made changes, bringing in young pianist Chick Corea and drummer Al Foster, both at the outset of their studio careers, to join Cook and Taylor. That personnel appeared on two sessions, on 30 July, 1964, and 14 July, 1965, released as The Thing To Do and Down With It! respectively.
These are all characteristic Blue Note sessions of the day, mixing stabs at a hit tune - it wasn't only Lee Morgan who was looking for another 'Sidewinder' - through funky groovers like Joe Henderson's 'Mamacita' (on Step Lightly), Mitchell's infectious 'Funghi Mama' (on The Thing To Do), or the uninspired 'Hi Heel Sneakers' (on Down With M), with the usual concoction of bop and blues originals (notable contributors of material included Jimmy Heath, Sonny Red, Chick Corea, and Melba Liston), Latin tunes, standards and ballads. The performances are never less than enjoyable, with Mitchell again underlining the sheer consistency of his playing, while the youthful Corea is already full of good ideas. The trumpeter's warmth and overtly lyrical approach is emphasized on commanding ballad performances like 'Cry Me a River' from the Step Lightly session, Jimmy Heath's elegant 'Mona's Mood' on The Thing To Do, or 'Portrait of Jenny' from his next date for Alfred Lion, Bring It Home To Me.
Recorded on 6 January, 1966, it featured two new faces, pianist Harold Mabern and drummer Billy Higgins, and was his last straight-ahead quintet date for the label. The final two sessions he cut while Alfred Lion was still in charge at Blue Note, Boss Horn (from 17 November, 1966) and Heads Up! (from the same date, 17 November, but exactly one year later) both featured larger groups, with arrangements by Duke Pearson.
By the time he recorded his last two crossover-oriented albums, Collision in Black in 1968 and Bantu Village in 1969, Lion had sold Blue Note to Liberty Records (they are not included in the Mosaic set), and Mitchell had felt the cold wind blowing for hard bop in those years. Much of his subsequent work was in more commercial forms as a studio sideman, and touring or recording with artists like Jimmy McGriff, Ray Charles, Mike Bloomfield, John Mayall, Big Joe Turner, Papa John Creach, Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. He settled in Los Angeles in the 1970s, and worked with Harold Land in a bop band, drummer Louie Bellson, and bassist Ray Brown, among others. His recordings of the 1970s, made for several labels, including Mainstream, Just jazz and Impulse!, were a mixed bag of acoustic and electric, hard bop, soul and pop, and never as satisfying as his classic Riverside-Blue Note period. He died from cancer on 21 May, 1979, aged only forty-nine."
The qualities which made him such an automatic first call are clear from the outset. He had a solid musical education, was a good reader, and had excellent technical command of his instrument. He had thoroughly assimilated the musical implications of the bop idiom, and while his playing was never really innovative or strikingly original, he was able to deliver consistently fluent, imaginative and well-rounded improvisations within that idiom. His reliability (and the not entirely coincidental fact that he was not a drug user) also counted in his favors, and he was unlikely to upstage the leader with too generous a flow of spectacular original ideas or virtuosity.
He cut sides for Prestige in 1956, including the unusual Two Trumpets date with Art Farmer and one of his most regular collaborators of the period, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean. Byrd had worked with McLean in the trumpeter's first important gig in New York with pianist George Wallington's band in 1955, and he also appeared on the saxophonist's sessions like New Soil and Jackie's Bag for Blue Note.
Byrd also recorded for Savoy again in 1957 on Star Eyes, with the seldom recorded alto saxophonist John Jenkins, a Chicagoan who made a brief but positive contribution to hard bop before disappearing from the jazz scene (although Jenkins was seldom heard from after the mid-'60s, the vibes player Joe Locke told me that he was sure he had come across him busking in New York in the mid-'90s).
Byrd's principal associations of the late 1950s, though, came in two groups: the Jazz Lab Quintet he co-led with alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce, and the bands he shared with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams. The Jazz Lab Quintet was formed in 1957 to explore a more structured approach to hard bop than was generally evident in the blowing session dates of the day. They made several albums, the best known of which are on the Riverside and Columbia labels, provided the trumpeter with one of his most productive settings. In order to avoid undue repetition, I have discussed their work together in the Gigi Gryce section of this book (see Chapter 15; their recordings are also listed there), and will concentrate here on the second of these associations, with Pepper Adams.
The baritone saxophonist was born in Highland Park, Michigan, on 8 October, 1930, and raised in Rochester, New York. At the age of sixteen, he moved to Detroit, where he broke into the local jazz scene in the late '40s, working with saxophonists Lucky Thomson and Wardell Gray, among others. Adams began playing clarinet and tenor saxophone before adopting the bigger horn, inspired by the example of Duke Ellington's great baritone specialist, Harry Carney. Adams was only twelve when he first met Carney, but said later that his adoption of the instrument several years later was more down to having an unexpected opportunity to acquire one cheaply.
Byrd's crisp, richly brassy, increasingly lyrical trumpet work and the fleet, sinewy, driving approach which Adams had developed on baritone were combined with their notably complementary approach to phrasing and rhythmic placement to form a highly effective front line, either with the two horns or an additional alto or tenor saxophone. They gigged and recorded together under one or the other's nominal leadership as well as in tandem, and are heard on records like Adams's classic live date 10 to 4 at The Five Spot, recorded on 5 April, 1958 for Riverside; Motor City Scene (aka Stardust), an all-Detroit date for Bethlehem in 1960; and a 1961 date for Warwick Records, Out of This World, in which Herbie Hancock made his recording debut. The core of their collaboration, however, is contained in the series of recordings they made for Blue Note between 1958 and 1961, both live and in the studio (the latter were collected by Mosaic Records in The Complete Blue Note Donald Byrd/Pepper Adams Studio Sessions in 2000, which also includes a later date from 1967, belatedly issued in 1981 as The Creeper).
Chant, recorded on 17 April, 1961, but not released until much later; The Cat Walk, laid down two weeks later, on 2 May, 1961; and Royal Flush, from 21 September, 1961, were all quintet dates, and gave early recording breaks to the respective pianists, Herbie Hancock on Chant (with bassist Doug Watkins, another old Detroit buddy of Byrd's, and drummer Terri Robinson) and Royal Flush, and Duke Pearson on The Cat Walk. While a good pianist, Pearson's real strength lay in composing and arranging, and he contributed several tunes to the band's repertoire (Byrd later played on one of the pianist's best albums as a leader, Wahoo, released on Blue Note in 1964).
Some listeners may prefer the extra immediacy and atmosphere of the live club gig captured on At The Half Note Café, recorded on 11 November, 1960, and issued under Byrd's name (Blue Note issued the LPs in two separate volumes, but these were eventually combined on a double CD, with extra material). Both Byrd and Adams were in fine blowing form on that occasion, with a rhythm section of Duke Pearson, Lymon Jackson and Lex Humphries, and the music surges off the bandstand in sparkling fashion, although Humphries is a little four-square on drums - listen to the same group with Philly Joe Jones on The Cat Walk for an instructive illustration of just how much lift a really great drummer can add.
By the end of 1961, the leaders had broken up the band to pursue their own projects, and they reunited only for The Creeper date in 1967, with alto saxophonist Sonny Red, an old school mate of Byrd's from Detroit (his real name was Sylvester Kyner) who featured on several of the trumpeter's albums in the mid-'60s, and Chick Corea on piano. Adams went off to work with Lionel Hampton and then Thad Jones, while Byrd concentrated more fully on his own activities as a leader. He had already cut two sessions for Blue Note without his baritone partner: the rather lackluster Fuego, recorded in October, 1959, with Jackie McLean on board, and Byrd in Flight (a title that seemed inevitable at some point), made in two sessions in January and July, 1960, with either McLean on alto or Hank Mobley on tenor.
Even if the trumpeter occasionally sounds as if he is struggling to assimilate his style within the context of Wayne Shorter's oblique probings, Hancock's adventurous open chord voicings, and the flexibility of Warren and Higgins, Free Form remains one of his finest albums, although not everyone would agree, starting with the Penguin Guide. Perhaps with rather more justification, they do not think much of its successor, either, but A New Perspective broke fresh ground for Byrd in its combination of a vocal chorus of eight singers (directed by Coleridge Perkinson, who had arranged the choir on Max Roach's It's Time the previous year) and a septet which featured Hank Mobley and guitarist Kenny Burrell as well as Hancock, with arrangements by Duke Pearson.