LISTEN TO ONE: Somethin' Slick album version
LISTEN TO ONE: Somethin' Slick 45 RPM version
Jack McDuff welcomed in the new year with a January 2nd session in Englewood Cliffs featuring an eight piece band, which apparently didn't go so well. Only two tunes were recorded, one of which was unissued, the other of which eventually made it onto a compilation album called The Soul Giants. It was one of Prestige's PRST releases of the late 1960s and early 1970s--tracks re-engineered for stereo release, not always successfully.
He was back again a week later, on January 8, with a different lineup, only tenorman Harold Vick and his regular drummer Joe Dukes. McDuff was by this time solidly into the soul jazz groove that would make him one of the most popular jazz artists of the decade.
It's hard to say what could have gone wrong with the January 2 octet session, with some first rate musicians aboard, but by the time the following Tuesday had rolled around, he had a tight group of players who knew just what to do. Joe Dukes was steadily building a reputation as one of the premier soul jazz drummers. He would make a career, and a good one, as Brother Jack's drummer, and pretty much fade out of sight as the the soul jazz decade of the 1960s came to an end.
Harold Vick was to make his first recording as leader later in the year with Blue Note, and would go on to make several albums with as many different labels, never quite seizing the brass ring, but making some solidly good music. He would continue to work with McDuff through 1964.
Eric Dixon only climbed aboard the McDuff cavalcade for this one session, but he knew how to swing to a solid groove, as his years with Count Basie demonstrate. And Kenny Burrell and Ray Barretto make any session better.
Sometimes it's hard to understand the vagaries of contractual obligations in the recording industry, especially the jazz end of it. Burrell is credited as K. B. Groovington on one track, "Shaky," which was buried until 1969 and finally released on a PRST compilation of McDuff sides from various Prestige sessions, Steppin' Out. . A track from a February McDuff session also ended up on Steppin' Out, so maybe by 1960 Burrell was under contract with a label that precluded the use of his name on compilations? Hard to believe. But I'm not an entertainment contract lawyer.
Five of these tunes--the title tune, "How High the Moon," It's a Wonderful World," "Smut" and "Our Miss Brooks" comprised McDuff's next LP, Somethin' Slick. "Love Walked In" was held over for a subsequent album with Burrell, "Shaky" got shaken down to the stereo compilation, and "Easy Livin' didn't make the cut at all, or at least hasn't yet. It may still end up on some streaming service.
"Somethin' Slick" was released on 45 RPM, at about half the length of the album cut (6:34 to 3:01), and I've included both versions as a sort of Listen to One and Listen to One (a), to demonstrate how a tune was edited down to fit the demands of jukeboxes. There's actually a third version available on YouTunes, a promotional copy sent to DJs, whittled down to 2:53
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