Listening to Prestige 630 - Joe Dukes

LISTEN TO ONE: Greasy Drums

 The super-popularity of Brother Jack McDuff's quartet naturally meant Prestige wanted to get more product out there, and one way of doing it without overdoing it was to give each member of the quartet his own session. Well, there's nothing wrong with giving the people what they want, but this was more than just a marketing ploy: Jack McDuff was pretty serious about giving his bandmates a chance in the spotlight, and Bob Weinstock was happy to go along with it. Red Holloway was a seasoned professional who had already recorded one album as a leader for Prestige, separate from the McDuff orbit. George Benson was a budding superstar, about to take flight.

Joe Dukes was something else, practically Jack McDuff's other self. Though he was widely regarded in jazz circles as the quintessential soul jazz drummer, his career was almost entirely circumscribed by McDuff. He appeared on very few recordings that were not with McDuff, and when his tenure with McDuff was finished, he pretty much vanished from the scene. Wikipedia, which is pretty good on having at least something for many really obscure jazz musicians, has no entry for Joe Dukes. And this was the only session he ever recorded as leader. 

But Dukes was one of the key ingredients in the huge success of the McDuff quartet, and he's a lot more than window dressing here. This session is built around showcasing him. Except for the Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis standard "Two Bass Hit," all the compositions are credited to Dukes and McDuff, all prominently feature drum solos, and all are engineered to bring out the drum sound.

The result? You can tell why Dukes was so highly regarded by his peers.

Dukes worked on 26 sessions with McDuff for Prestige between 1961 and 1966. McDuff then recorded several sessions for Atlantic between 1966 and 1968. He used Dukes on two of them, but mostly worked with other configurations, and much of his work for Atlantic was never issued. He recorded for Cadet (no Dukes) and then for Blue Note, where he brought Dukes back on board for one 1969 album, recorded over several days. 

Beyond that, he participated in a 1966 Hank Crawford session for Atlantic (one track on Crawford's Mr. Blues album), and two 1970 Lonnie Smith sessions for Blue Note. One of these resulted in the album Drives; the other, a live session. got stuck in Blue Note's vaults and would not be released until 1995.

After that, nothing. Dukes died in 1992, and the drummer once described by George Benson as "such a magnificent drummer that there were times I thought he was one of the greatest things that ever happened to mankind" was pretty much forgotten. The organ jazz phenomenon ran its course, but it still has its aficionados, and there are still younger fans, especially drummers, picking up a McDuff album and saying "My God -- who is this Joe Dukes?"

The album was entitled The Soulful Drums Of Joe Dukes With The Brother Jack McDuff Quartet, and  yielded one 45 RPM single, "Moohah The D.J." / "Greasy Drums," in both cases considerably abridged from the album versions. As with all McDuff product, the session was produced by Lew Futterman.