LISTEN TO ONE: The Thang
Ronnie Mathews debut album as a leader might have been the start of a distinguished career -- and it was, actually, but most of that career was under the radar, and when he died (of pancreatic cancer, in 2019) most of his obituaries took note of the fact that he was not as well known as he might have been, considering the significance of his accomplishment. The New York Times gave us both sides of that picture:
Mr. Matthews spent most of his career out of the spotlight. But he was highly valued by many noted fellow musicians for his harmonic acuity, his imagination as an improviser and his sensitivity as an accompanist.
And his friend and colleague Cedar Walton said:
I like to equate Ronnie to a great character actor who may be well known in the business but not so well known outside of the business. If you go back, you could equate him to actors like Peter Lorre or Sydney Greenstreet. They were always around but not in the forefront so much. And the time that they had on the screen made an impact. That was Ronnie. He may have been underappreciated by the general public, but I’ll certainly never forget him.
It';s a good bet that Cedar had recently watched The Maltese Falcon. Mathews would not record again as a leader until the mid-1970s, and then his output was on tiny labels with limited distribution. But as a sideman he continued to be in demand, and not altogether unnoticed. Reviewing a 1981 appearance at the Village Vanguard by Johnny Griffin, with whom Mathews worked frequently, New York Times critic John S. Wilson commented on "the dashing flair that [Griffin] brings to his playing, and then went on to say that:
His pianist, Ronnie Matthews, reflects [that flair] so well that he is a constant and provocative challenge to Mr. Griffin.
Even more than Mr. Griffin, Mr. Matthews is the energizer of the group, developing solos that rise out of preliminary single-note noodling to become swinging, swirling juggernauts.
At the same that Mathews was poised to embark on four decades of respected obscurity, his partner for
this session, Freddie Hubbard, was on the brink of a career in the jazz limelight, appearing on some of the most important albums of the 1960s (Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage), and then attaining jazz superstardom in the 1970s.
You can hear all of that on this session: Mathews's power as a composer, improviser, and the glue holding the session together, Hubbard's untrammeled, hair-raising virtuosity. They make for a great combination--sort of what John S. Wilson heard that night at the Vanguard with Mathews and Johnny Griffin.
The rhythm section is rounded out by Eddie Khan and Albert "Tootie" Heath, another pair whose reputations were to go in opposite directions. Heath was a member of the gifted musical family who would perform together as the Heath Brothers in the 1970s. In 2020 he was honored as an NEA Jazz Master. Jazz buffs have had a hard time tracking down any information on Khan, who stopped playing in the 1970s, and died of cancer some years later in California. He is believed to have worked as a cameraman for CBS News in Los Angeles.
And baritone saxophone player Charles Davis made his mark on an instrument that doesn't get the headlines too often, so even though he won best baritone sax player in Down Beat's 1954 International Critics Poll, his name is hardly a household word, even in jazz households. But he had a long association with both Sun Ra and Kenny Dorham, and he was noteworthy as a producer of jazz events.
The tunes are Mathews's except for Duke Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss" and one Charles Davis composition, "1239-A." Ozzie Cadena produced, and the Prestige release was entitled Doin' That Thang.
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