Listening to Prestige 594: Brother Jack McDuff

LISTEN TO ONE: Rock Candy

 This is a big deal in the Brother Jack McDuff story and the Prestige story: the debut of a young man who will be one of the biggest jazz stars of the rest of the century, and on into the next millennium. George Benson would record several Prestige albums with McDuff, and one under his own leadership. before venturing on to stratospheric fame (there aren't many jazz players who have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame).

Benson started out as a child prodigy on the ukulele in his native Pittsburgh, taught by his father, although when he switched to guitar, his father let him go his own way--because, as Benson remembers it, his father thought the guitar began

and ended with Charlie Christian. It wasn't until years later that his father finally agreed to listen to him, and Dad had to agree that Charlie Christian had a rival.

Benson played mainly rhythm and blues in local clubs around Pittsburgh, though he did get nudged into more modern sounds when a certain musician used to come to town courting a woman. Stevie Wonder eventually married the girl, but on his trips to town, he would occasionally come and sit in with George. As Benson recalls it, his audiences refused to believe it was really Stevie Wonder, because what would he be doing in a dinky club in Pittsburgh sitting in with a kid guitarist?

It was another established musician who took him out of Pittsburgh, and brought his musicianship to another level. Benson was 19 when Jack McDuff brought him into his band, and he had a lot to learn. He recalled in an interview,

I had just started playing chord changes or jazz tunes, and I didn’t know very much about what was happening. He would have me play lines in unison or harmony with the saxophone player, and they would be at ridiculous tempos. And by the fact that the saxophone player did them, I didn’t question the fact that they could be done. I decided it was just my ability at fault; I’d go home and practise them, play them sideways, until I came up with a way to play these tunes that I didn’t even understand. And eventually I began to fit into his repertoire, and became a valuable member of the group;

It wasn't always easy. McDuff and his longtime drummer Joe Dukes were solid professionals, and very exacting. They would let him have it with both barrels if he didn't measure up, and with no shortage of obscenities.

Finally, after a particularly nasty rant, I snapped: "If y’all don’t lay off, I’m gonna take y’all outside and beat y’all old men up! I’m nineteen years old! Y’all can’t take me! We’re going out in the alley, right now!" McDuff and Dukes just stared at me for a second, then they both pulled out switchblades. But that didn’t stop me: “I don’t care! Y’all don’t scare me! Bring your switchblades into the alley! I’ll beat y’all up anyhow!” Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed: nobody went into the alley, and nobody got beaten up. But it got them off my back.

By the time they got to the Front Room in Newark in June of 1963, Benson had learned a thing or two.

This is one of those rarities--a Prestige live album. In engineering it, they play up the live aspect, with spoken introductions to the tunes, ad libs and a lot of crowd noise. It was a good choice for a live album, as it turned out, though Bob Weinstock and the Prestige team couldn't have predicted just how good at the time. The recording gives you that "present at the creation" feeling when Benson launches into his solo on "Rock Candy," the first tune of the set. There's even a false ending, as McDuff appears to wrap up the tune, followed by a moment of silence, followed by Benson ripping into it, and one can

even imagine oneself at the Front Room in Newark, suddenly looking up and saying "Who is this guy?"

"Rock Candy" would become a staple of McDuff's live sets. He would record it again in 1996 with Joey DiFrancesco, and Benson would record it with his own group in 2006.

The crowd at the Front Room got their money's worth on this night, as the group pulled out all the stops. Well, McDuff didn't pull out all the stops on Gershwin's "It Ain't Necessarily So," although he gives a bravura performance, restricting the organ to its percussive possibilities, while Benson and Holloway take care of the melodic parts.

McDuff never forgot he was a jazzman, but he also never forgot he was an entertainer--a good lesson for the young guitarist. He always included familiar songs with catchy melodies that people would like -- such as "Whistle While You Work," the dwarves' song from Walt Disney's Snow White, with drum work by Joe Dukes that makes one understand why Benson described him as "such a magnificent drummer that there were times I thought he was one of the greatest things that ever happened to mankind."

And "Undecided," a tune written by Charlie Shavers, who was torn between two poetic and evocative titles for his new composition, so he sent it off to his publishers marked "Undecided" -- title yet to come. They, however, misunderstood, thought that "Undecided" was the title, and sent it off to lyricist Sid Robin. The point of no return was reached for the song when Ella Fitzgerald recorded the lyric, and as "Undecided" it became a huge hit for the Ames Brothers in 1951.

McDuff's own compositions are always riff-based and accessible, and one of them, "Sanctified Samba," is an excellent object lesson in something else Brother Jack told the young guitarist:

I learned the blues from my former boss Brother Jack McDuff. He kept stressing, “Man, put some blues in that stuff, man.” I said, “Wait a minute, man, it’s not a blues song.” He said, “I don’t care! Put some blues in it.” I asked him why he liked the blues so much, and he told me that no matter where you are in the world – you could be in America or in China – if you play blues, they understand it.

So that’s why it’s so valuable to me. I’ve experimented with that philosophy over the years and have found that he’s correct. People like the blues no matter where you are all over the world. So it became something that I decided should be a part of everything I did. The blues is like street music. It’s like the language of the street.

This album is a riveting introduction to a budding superstar, but it's also a tight ensemble album, held together by the always masterful Dukes and featuring stellar playing by Red Holloway.

Production was handled by Lew Futterman, a recent Cornell graduate making his producing debut. He would go on to achieve success as an independent jazz producer, and greater success as a rock producer, and mega-success, ultimately, as a real estate developer, thus answering the question, "How can I make millions of dollars producing jazz?"

Brother Jack McDuff--Live! was the title of the Prestige album, with a few cuts not making it. The alternate version of "Undecided" was held off for 1967's Hallelujah Time!, and "Love Walked In" and "The Midnight Sun" appeared on The Midnight Sun, in the same year.  The session threw off its share of 45 RPM singles -- first "A Real Good 'Un" / "Rock Candy," then "Sanctified Samba" / "Whistle While You Work." A few years later, in 1967, "Rock Candy" would be the A side of a 45, with "Grease Monkey," from a different session. The singles are one indication of McDuff's huge popularity at the time; the number of times Prestige brought him back into the studio is another. But, as the song says, fame if you win it comes and goes in a minute. In recent interviews, greying superstar George Benson has had to explain that Jack McDuff was an organist who gave him his first start.