Listening to Prestige 596: Booker Ervin

LISTEN TO ONE: Mooche Mooche

 For as long as there has been small group jazz, there have been artists rebelling against its strictures--the "formula" of head-solo-solo-solo-head. Well, it's not a formula, any more than the sonnet or the ballad or the three-act play is a formula. It's a form, and forms persist because they work. They can also be broken, rebelled against, turned inside out, but in a sense that's just a tribute to their durability.

Of course, the reason why the small group, head-solo-solo-solo-head formula works is twofold. First, it works because American music is full of great melodies and great riffs that are a pleasure to play and a pleasure to listen to, and pleasure is at the

heart of all music that lasts. Second, and most important, it works because it gives wonderful musicians a chance to express themselves -- a showcase to be heard in a supportive context, and space to express themselves through tonal quality and improvisational inspiration.

One such wonderful musician who flowered in the 1960s was Booker Ervin. Ervin had burst onto the scene in 1958 in the ensemble of Charles Mingus, with whom he enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship. He had recorded with Mal Waldron and Roy Haynes for Prestige, and with Horace Parlan for Blue Note, and had made three records as leader (for Bethlehem, Savoy and Candid), so he was hardly an unknown quantity when came to Englewood Cliffs for this session, but it was the beginning of his most fertile period, with ten albums for Prestige. 

Prestige in this period was open to a wide range of music, from the free experiments of Eric Dolphy to the soul fundamentalism of Jack McDuff, and the tradition-maintaining sounds of Swingville and Bluesville, but Ervin came perhaps as close as any to the jazz heart of this label. Working with like-minded musicians, he used this premiere performance of his Prestige years to add a new sound to the library of small group masterpieces.

Frank Strozier had the admiration of his peers. Here's tuba virtuoso Howard Johnson:

No one was ever really up to the task of playing with that much technical proficiency, deep harmonic expression and all the while keeping a foot deeply in the blues. For me, Frank is joined by Harry Carney, Benny Golson, Sonny Red and Paul Gonsalves in the league of players who were never imitated because their way was too hard to figure out, much less execute. And at the same time they were as deeply inspirational as some of the widely acknowledged innovators.

He recorded with a wide variety of musicians, but never quite broke through to the level of popularity he deserved. Finally, in the late 1980s, he gave up playing the saxophone and returned to his first instrument, the piano. He never recorded on the piano, but his concerts were well reviewed and appreciated by those who heard them. Then he left music to become a math and science teacher.

Horace Parlan was also a Mingus associate. It was he who first heard Ervin when he came to New York, and recommended him to Mingus, and Ervin played on two records Parlan made as leader for Blue Note. His unique piano style, marked by heavy emphasis on the left hand, was formed by a childhood bout with polio which robbed him of the use of three fingers on his right hand.

I've written about Butch Warren on his one previous Prestige gig, with Walter Bishop Jr. He was much in demand during the early 1960s, but substance abuse and mental health issues caught up with him, and he left the rat race of big time jazz and returned to his home in Washington, DC, where he played but little. 

Walter Perkins began his career in Chicago with Ahmad Jamal, and as leader of his own ensemble MJT+3, which included Frank Strozier. He came to New York in 1962, and immediately became ubiquitous, with several sessions for Prestige alone before signing on for this gig. They included Gene Ammons, Etta Jones, fellow Chicagoan John Wright, and Dave Pike.

I said earlier that the basic small group jazz form has endured because of good musicians and good music. That's in evidence here. Broadway was still yielding up tunes with the feel of standards, such as Jule Styne's "Just in Time," from Broadway (1956) and Hollywood (1960) hit Bells Are Ringing. Fats Waller was the source for "Black and Blue." The others were originals from either Ervin ("Mooche Mooche" and "Tune In") or Perkins ("Mour," which Ervin liked enough to record again for Blue Note), or the two of them together ("No Man's Land"). All good stuff, but I've chosen "Mooche Mooche" as our "Listen to One" for sustained excitement and top notch solos from all concerned.

Exultation! was the title of the Prestige album. Short versions of "Just in Time" and "No Man's Land" were issued as a 45 RPM single, and later added to a 1971 re-release. Don Schlitten produced.