Listening to Prestige 359; Gigi Gryce

This is the second of Gigi Gryce's three albums for Prestige, all with essentially the same group (Julian Euell replaces Reggie Workman on bass). Gryce clearly liked playing with these guys, and they are a classroom lesson in guys you haven't heard of, or have barely heard of, who never broke through to the top ranks.

It makes a difference if you can get your name attached to an album as leader, and Richard Williams only managed that once, on the Candid label.

Candid might have been a successful small jazz label. It was started recording exec Archie Bleyer, who had a good thing going with Cadence Records, and he got Nat Hentoff to run it. Williams brought in Gryce-mates Richard Wyands and Reggie Workman, and Hentoff himself produced the session, but in spite of being recorded at the Nola Penthouse Studio on the top floor of the Steinway building, the record never got off the ground, and Wiliams was never able to repeat it. He continued work regularly, most often with Charles Mingus and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis big band, and his versatility not only got him work in Broadway pit bands, but on some classical recordings. He gives a good accounting of himself here, especially on the Gryce composition, "Minority."

Richard Wyands was another who worked regularly, including a ten-year stint with Kenny Burrell, but also managed to stay under the radar of public acclaim.He was originally a Californian, born and rised in Oakland, where he got his firat musical experience, and his first major expoaure as the intermission pianist at San Francisco's Black Hawk club. He recalled, in an interview with Ted Panken in 2000, learning from the great pianists like Art Tatum who played the Black Hawk:

He told me, “You can’t compete with me anyhow, but keep it up.”  He encouraged me a lot.  No one can compete with him, no one in the world!  But he was very nice about it.  In fact, he was glad I was there, because he would talk to me while he was playing.  I’d sit right up there by the piano and he knew I was sitting there, even though he couldn’t see too well at that time, and he would tell me what he was doing and what key he was going into.  But when he came off the bandstand, I had to get on, so we really didn’t have much time to talk in between — not really.  But just sitting there watching him was quite an experience.

Leaving California for New York, he played some gigs and got a few recordings before hooking up with Gryce, a time he remembers fondly:

Somehow I met Gigi Gryce, and he was organizing a band along with Reggie Workman, Richard Williams and Mickey Roker.  We rehearsed and we worked at the old Five Spot, different places in Brooklyn... the group with Gigi was a great group.  I really loved it.  We had so much fun.  It was a happy group.  Extremely happy.  I’d never been in a group like that before ever, anywhere, where everything was just so happy and musical.  Happy musically and otherwise.  Everybody got along with each other, there was no arguing and fighting, no egos.  One of the best groups I ever worked with.  Then Gigi disappeared from the scene and we were all on our own.  So I just freelanced around New York.

There are only two Gryce originals on this session. The others are familiar standards, and one odd duck: the old folk song, "Frankie and Johnny." This is not usual fare for a modern jazz group, though we have seen it before, with Gil Evans and "Ella Speed." They have some fun with this one, starting out playing the melody in almost a honky tonk style, then opening up with the improvisations.

The Gryce originals are "Nica's Tempo," one of the many tributes the jazz baroness who nurtured Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, a nice tune that's still played and recorded, and "Minority," one of Gryce's most famous compositions. This session was his third recording of it, and there have been close to 200 others, including landmark versions by Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans that preceded this one.

Esmond Edwards produced. The Hap'nin's was released on New Jazz.