Listening to Prestige 332: Benny Golson

"April in Paris" was written in 1932 by Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg for a Broadway show called Walk a Little Faster. The show was not exactly a flop, not exactly a hit (118) performances, but the song was an instant classic, and it's never wanted for performers eager to take it on. It's had vocal interpretations from Sinatra to Ella and Louis to Shirley Basey, but the most successful, and still the definitive version was, amazingly enough, a jazz instrumental. Count Basie recorded it in 1955: bold, brassy, and so exuberant that it demanded not just "one more time" but "one more once" after that.

But a great tune is always going to find great artists with new approaches. In 1956 alone there were ten new jazz recordings, including piano versions by Errol Garner, Thelonious Monk and Nat "King" Cole, and a treatment by Thad Jones, who had contributed a memorable solo to the Basie recording.

In 1959, Benny Golson was ready to add his voice to the "April in Paris" story, and his was a very different approach from Basie's: moody and subdued. Paris in the springtime may be a time for lovers, but for every lover there's a broken heart, and a sad story to tell in a late night bistro. Golson has the thoughtful commiseration of Tommy Flanagan, but for the most part this is is his tone poem, and he plays it with deep understanding.

But he snaps out of the meditative mood with "Tippin' on Through." This is the composer of "Blues March," a hit for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and "Tippin'" has some of that march feeling to it. It seems like an odd fit, but Golson has proved it can work, and in a way, jazz and march compositions have certain commonalities, They both have a predilection for riff-based melodies, at least as funneled through the musical imagination of Benny Golson.

Tommy Flanagan takes a world-weary approach to intro to the next number, as though baubles, bangles and beads, no matter how they jing-jing-aling, are still the stuff of vanity. Golson and Curtis Fuller soon set him straight, kicking off a celebration.

The blues take center stage for the rest of the session, with two Golson compositions, "Tom Hurd's Blues" and "Blue Streak." The blues really never do grow old.

Doug Watkins and Art Taylor rounded out the quintet. Watkins had spent much of the previous year in Europe with Donald Byrd. He would continue to be a mainstay sessions for Prestige and other labels until his untimely death in 1962, the result of an auto accident. Gettin' With It was produced by Esmond Edwards, released on New Jazz. We have two thirds of the Jazztet-to-be here, as on Golson's previous New Jazz recording--and as on a Savoy album cut during the fall, under Fuller's leadership, as the Curtis Fuller Jazztet: the first time that name was used, with Lee Morgan as the third Tet. The next time it would be used would be just six weeks away, in early February, on the Argo release Meet the Jazztet, with Art Farmer. Farmer, Golson and Fuller had first united as the Jazztet for club dates in November.


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Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell