Listening to Prestige 622: Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: Gator Tail

 This would seem to be some indication of how well Prestige was doing with Willis Jackson in the mid-1960s. A night at a New York club, four sets captured live, released on four different albums over the next three years. Jackson's popularity didn't endure--you won't find his name on any contemporary list of best jazz saxophone players, perhaps because he's too closely identified with rhythm and blues, and jazz snobbery still exists. This is wrong, of course. Rhythm and blues is jazz. for one thing, and for another, Jackson's many Prestige albums were squarely in the mainstream hard bop tradition. A quick glance at the set lists

for this live date makes the point: He plays a couple of his rhythm and blues favorites, like "Gator Tail" and "Blue Gator," but a lot more jazz standards: "Polka Dots and Moonbeams," "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid," "Perdido."

And of these four albums, only a handful of tracks have been posted by jazz aficionados on YouTube. So Jackson is still collected, but assiduously.

And probably, Jackson's recordings from this era are mostly remembered for the presence of a very young Pat Martino, at the beginning of his career, still calling himself Pat Azzara, on guitar. The CD reissues of these and other recordings are all billed as Willis Jackson with Pat Martino. That's understandable -- Martino was already a standout guitarist, at the threshold of a great career. But the fervent Martino collector who finds these albums will be treated to a fine band, led by a very fine sax man.

Even at the time, Jackson's defenders faced something of an uphill battle. In the liner notes for Live! Action, Kansas City radio personality Tom Reed quoted Michael Gold's liner notes to an earlier Jackson album:

This music from a jazz critic's standpoint has been unjustly rated on many occasions. Many critics have confused the initial intent and purpose of the music which they evaluate with their own ideals and standards of merit. It is often startling to read that a record which is obviously aimed at the amusement and entertainment of the listener is mistaken and evaluated by the standards which should be used for work which projects itself with a different and contradictory intent.

Today many musicians have only contempt for critics. It is very difficult for an artist to have respect for a man who makes such obvious errors out of a profound ignorance or through a mistaken belief in the purpose of the music."

It's the old artists vs. critics battle. NBA star George "Iceman" Gervin said it well, and I'm paraphrasing from memory, when he explained why he didn't have much use for sportswriters: He said that he goes out every night and tests himself against some of the greatest athletes who ever lived, and who are these writers testing themselves against? Shakespeare? Hemingway? Not likely,

And there's something to be said for critics being in the vanguard, calling attention to new artists like Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy before the listening public at large is ready to give something so new a chance. And something to be said for pointing out that sometimes mass taste is just wrong, wrong, wrong, and saxophone players with one initial for a last name aren't really offering anything musically rewarding.

But there's very often something to be said for music that people like to listen to. Especially when it's being played by a pro's pro who knows how to give the people what they want in a hard-driving, sweet sounding, musically fulfilling way. Especially when the old pro has taken under his wing a 19-year-old guitarist who's already making people prick their ears up and take notice. The two hot young guitarists who were starting to play around town and make people sit up and take notice were Martino and George Benson, and Benson has talked about going to hear Martino and being turned on by him.

A live album, or series of albums, covering four sets on the same night, is a good place to put this theory to the test, as the band is going to be playing a lot of familiar material, the tunes that a live club audience is going to want to hear. Jackson, Martino and company pass that test with flying colors.

The four Prestige albums to issue from this night of live music (with "Blue Gator" on two of them) are Jackson's Action! Recorded Live, Live! Action (with Pat Martino pinning a new tail on the Gator with his solo on Jackson's signature song), Soul Night/Live!, and Tell It... Ozzie Cadena produced, and Prestige got good value out of an evening at the Allegro.