Listening to Prestige 385: Willis Jackson

Willis, Jack, and Bill, back again, and proving once more that they know how to play the music folks want to hear.

And proving once again what a blessing it was that Bob Weinstock decided to sign up musicians like Jackson and Hal Singer, bringing what had been marginalized as rhythm and blues into the main stream of jazz, into the recording cathedral of Rudy Van Gelder, and onto the long playing record.

The main difference between jazz and rhythm and blues, as I've said before, is basically the difference between the jukebox and the jazz radio broadcast, between the 45 RPM record and the LP.  Give musicians like Willis Jackson, Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings eight minutes instead of three to play a tune like "Cookin' Sherry," and you get the full potential of rhythm and blues--room for three great soloists to open up, stretch out, and develop their solos without sacrificing any of that rhythm and blues intensity. You can dance your ass off to "Cookin' Sherry," or you can snap your fingers and listen to what the soloists are doing, what the two other principals are doing behind the solo, what Wendell Marshall and Bill Elliott are doing--all the things that make jazz the twentieth century's answer to chamber music, only hotter. Or any combination of the above.

"Cookin' Sherry," "Blue Gator" and "Tu'gether" are the three Jackson originals from the session, with composer credit for "Mellow Blues" given to the three of them. But this trio, although they would go their separate ways, made such tight, inventive and listenable music together that you wouldn't go far wrong in thinking of them as the MJQ of gutbucket. On all of these numbers they each have solos that complement the others as though they shared one mind or set of guts, while still expressing irrepressible individualism.

They do right by other people's compositions, too. Jackson shows his ballad side on "Try a Little Tenderness," which comes in at just under six minutes and is mostly him, although Jennings contributes a sensitive and unusual guitar solo. Jimmy Dorsey's "Contrasts" brings rhythm and blues to swing, or vice versa, and why not?

Esmond Edwards produced. The session was split up and sprinkled over three albums. "Blue Gator" was on its eponymous album along with "Try a Little Tenderness." "Cookin' Sherry" was also eponymous, joined by "Contrasts" and "Mellow Blues." "Tu'gether" didn't quite manage eponymity, but close. It was on the album called Together Again. Three two-sided 45s came out of the session: "Cookin' Sherry," "Blue Gator" and "Tu'gether."

Listening to Prestige Vol. 3, 1957-58 now includes, in its Kindle edition, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. Available from Amazon.