Listening to Prestige 629: Don Patterson, Booker Ervin

LISTEN TO ONE: When Johnny Comes Marching Home

 As with George Benson, Prestige groomed Don Patterson for stardom before introducing him with his name above the title. Unlike Benson, Patterson would stick around to become on of the label's bread and butter soul jazz artists of the second half of the decade.

Patterson was put together with Booker Ervin for two sessions, which would produce two albums, which would be released in quick succession--and before the year was out, there would be a third album under Patterson's name, plus another with Sonny Stitt, and several 45 RPM singles. Prestige was into Patterson big time.

The first album to be released was called The Exciting New Organ of Don Patterson, and since by 1964, the idea of an organ-led jazz group was no longer new, it had better be exciting, and to help make it so, Prestige called on another one of its young heavy hitters--the full title of the album would be The Exciting New Organ of Don Patterson with Booker Ervin.

And yes, this was a combination capable of generating excitement, pressing the tempos, churning the music, generating hot but un-clichéd solos. The group was basically a trio, with Billy James, Patterson's long time associate, on drums. Alto saxophonist Leonard Houston was added for one track, "Hip Cake Walk." This appears to have been Houston's only recording on a recognized jazz label.

Five tracks from the session went onto Exciting New Organ. "S'Bout Time" is a Patterson original, and features a soaring Ervin solo, emerging with wings out of the opening riff, and urged on by the organ of Patterson, who then, in a solo of his own, lives up to the album title's hype, and also demonstrates what he was talking about when he was quoted as saying, "What I'm trying to do is keep the piano sound when I play the organ." "Up in Betty's Room" is attributed to both Patterson and James, and features some intricate but still funky work by the two lead instruments.

The rest of the album looks elsewhere for musical inspiration, and finds it in a variety of places, some not unexpected (Sonny Rollins' jazz standard "Oleo") and sone decidedly unexpected. "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is a patriotic marching song most closely associated with the Civil War, although the tune is probably even older than that. It's a catchy melody, as could be expected from a tune that's lasted that long, but not one that would normally catch the ear of a jazz musician. But catchy is catchy, and Patterson clearly heard something he liked in this one, and it's his baby. He starts out with another patriotic lick, then goes into a funky-slippery interpretation of the familiar melody, with James playing a funky-not-entirely-slippery version of a military snare drum. It takes a while for Ervin to get into the mood, but when he does, he enters with the kind of solo that led his contemporaries to say that you could recognize a Booker Ervin solo after two notes. Patterson and Ervin end up by finding enough inspiration for ten minutes of improvisation on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," ending up by playing the melody straight. It's quite a performance.

The final cut for the album was French composer Sascha Distel's moody ballad "The Good Life," providing a change of pace for Patterson and Ervin. Distel's melody was first titled "Marina," then, with French lyrics, "La Belle Vie." Willis Jackson had previously given Prestige a version of "The Good Life," and the tune was probably best known to American audiences through Tony Bennet's 1963 recording.

The rest of the session was parceled off to various destinations. "Hip Cake Walk," with alto saxophonist Leonard Houston added, became the title track to an album mostly recorded in July. "Love Me with All Your Heart" made it onto an album called Patterson's People. The people--not together--were Booker Ervin and Sonny Stitt. The album was leftover tracks from this session, an earlier session with Stitt, and a later session with Ervin.

"People" is the first Prestige recording since the advent of the LP era to be only released as a single, the flip side of a 45 headed by "Love Me with All Your Heart." "Up in Betty's Room" and "Under the Boardwalk" (from the July session) were also a 45 RPM single.

Ozzie Cadena produced.