Listening to Prestige 408: John Wright

Far too few people remember John Wright, unless they live in Chicago, where he was a local legend of the jazz scene, up until his death in 2017.  But he made a series of very fine albums for Prestige, starting with South Side Soul. Bob Weinstock brought him back to do the second of what would be five albums for the label, and since he was on hand, had him contribute to the previous day's blues debut by Arbee Stidham.  He played an important role in the artistic, if not commercial success of that album.

For the rest of his life, Wright would be known as "South Side Soul." He plays plenty of soul jazz on this album, and adds some of that South Side soul to everything he plays, but here he opens up his repertoire to show what else he can do. He plays four soulful originals from the South Side, one by Cannonball Adderley with a little New York soul, and three standards.

Bop-loving Joe Goldberg (author of the essential Jazz Masters of the Fifties), fighting a rearguard action against soul jazz, wrote the liner notes for this release, while he dismisses most new soul jazz pianists as hacks playing soul-by-the-numbers (he particularly hates Les McCann and has nothing good to say about Victor Feldman), he has nothing but respect for Wright, who, he says. 

has played church music, and has accompanied blues singers [emphasis his].  Living on Chicago's South Side, he has been acquainted with the origins of this style all his life. He does not play soul music because it is currently fashionable,  but because he was brought up hearing piano played that way. Never having had much formal training, he naturally turned to the kind of music he was familiar with when he began to play himself.

Goldberg was right about Wright not having had much formal training, but not because it wasn't available. According to a story on him in the Chicago Reader on the occasion of his 80th birthday (most of the rest of the biographical material is also from the Reader):

His siblings studied piano formally, but as Wright remembers it, their instructor refused to give him lessons, telling the family they'd be wasting their money. "Whatever we play, he plays equally as well," the teacher said. "He's not reading music, he's not using the right fingers, but he has God's gift . . . he can play everything he hears."

Wright grew up in the Pentecostal church, but at age 12 he moved over to begin playing for the Baptist church, which had livelier hymns. At 15, he heard jazz for the first time, and was won over to it. The more he learned about jazz, the more he liked it--and not just the music:

I made a vow: I was going to play jazz, drink plenty of whiskey, and chase pretty women. I kept that vow, and it almost killed me.

In 1952, he and a group of friends decided to join the Army to fight in Korea. Korea made a mark on the blues world. It was the first war after Truman integrated the armed forces, and a number of blues songs from the early 1950s contain lines like "My brother's in Korea." 

When it was discovered that Wright was a musician, he was put into Special Services and sent to Europe. All his friends went to Korea, and all of them were killed.

Wright played with some top-flight jazz musicians in Europe, became a star in Chicago's jazz firmament, where he played well enough to get invited back by Prestige for five albums, and drank whiskey well enough to knock himself out of contention and back to Chicago, where he eventually pulled himself together.

Of the three standards on the album one ("Witchcraft") was more of a current hit at the time (1957 for Frank Sinatra), but has endured to achieve standard status. It's an endearing number on this album, perky and musical (Goldberg points out that "the introduction to 'Witchcraft' is one that Red Garland has used," and there's certainly a Garland influence on Wright, but overall, this version of the song is his own). "Things Are Getting Better" is the Adderley tune, and its a good funky number that never quite became a jazz standard in spite of a vocal interpretation by Eddie Jefferson. 

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But it's soulful originals that are still the best of Wright. They fit him like an old shoe, and they satisfy like the whiskey and women that ultimately (for a while) got the best of him.

The album was called Nice 'n Tasty, a soul-suggestive title. "You Do It" and "Yes I Know" were the 45. Esmond Edwards produced.

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon.

The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.

– Terry Gibbs