Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
Percy Mayfield wrote and recorded "Please Send Me Someone to Love" in 1951, and its quality as a song was recognized pretty quickly. Dinah Washington recorded it in the same year (so, for that matter, did Dale Evans, showing the wide range of the song's appeal--after all, even cowgirls get the blues). And while jazz snobs might look down on rhythm and blues, at least some jazz musicians had more open ears. Count Basie and Joe Williams recorded it in 1955.
I first heard the song, and fell in love with it, in the 1957 doowop version by the Moonglows. That same year, Red Garland introduced an instrumental version of it. Somewhere around that time, I was beginning to fall in love with jazz. That's not quite right. It implies a gradual process. Somewhere around that time, I fell passionately in love with jazz in the space of five minutes and one song. And somewhere not long after that, I heard Red Garland's "Please Send Me Someone to Love."
If you were a teenager in the 1950s, at some point you were supposed to outgrow rock and roll, or so we were told. And rhythm and blues, which was lumped together with rock and roll, and indeed shared many overlaps/ Well, I had heard the clarion call from John Coltrane's horn (and Red Garland's piano, as I would find when I bought the Prestige album). Did that mean that, like the babies in Mary Poppins who spoke their first words in human language and from that instant on could no longer talk to or understand the birds, that I had heeded the cry of battle, crossed the Rubicon, and forever left those other musical genres behind, as I was supposed to.
But I hadn't. And hearing the Moonglows' song (as I knew it then) transformed by Garland, but still the same haunting memory, went a long way toward reassuring me that I was all right.
And I learned to trust my taste. And other jazz musicians were listening, too. Ramsey Lewis recorded it in 1958, Les McCann in 1961. Both had a pop music following, but both were respected jazz musicians. I make that point because, at that time, all these gradations mattered, and to the real purists, any record on the charts was a sellout.
Some other Prestige artists gravitated toward the tune. Davis's frequent collaborator, Shirley Scott, recorded it with an organ trio in 1958. Gene Ammons recorded it on his Argo session in 1962. And Davis included it, along with standards and originals, on this session.
By 1962, Percy Mayfield had endured a long and painful convalescence from an auto accident in which he had been pronounced dead at the scene. He no longer had a career as a rhythm and blues hitmaker, but one of his songs, "Hit the Road, Jack," had been picked up by Ray Charles, and on the strength of that hit, Charles had hired him as a full time staff writer, and would eventually record 15 of his songs.
He had become known as "the Poet of the Blues," and while "poet" is a term that's often thrown around too loosely, it has some validity in Mayfield's case. Specialty Records owner Art Rupe, for whom Mayfield made most of his hit records, praised his artistry while lamenting that he never had the confidence to present himself on a larger stage: "If he could have been encouraged more, he would have been seen as great as Langston Hughes.” I believe Rupe was right.
I haven't posted a "Listen to One" because it would have to be "Please Send Me Someone to Love," and as of this writing, it's not on YouTube. You can find it, however, on Amazon and Spotify (and probably iTunes, but I don't use that service, so can't be sure). Davis plays it beautifully, finding all the yearning, for the fate of mankind and his own happiness, that Mayfield put into both the words and the melody.
I'm glad that Davis was sufficiently drawn to this tune to record it, because he too was affected by the stigma attached to rhythm and blues in those days. In the liner notes, he explains his choice of a piano- over an organ-led ensemble:
I got to the stage where I'd had enough organ. It was always controversial, because a lot of people thought it belonged to R&B, and there's a faction that still refuses to accept the organ as a definite contribution to jazz. I made up my mind to go back to the conventional rhythm section.
This is Art Taylor's 68th appearance on a Prestige recording session, and he is a welcome addition every time. The other three musicians are all making their Prestige debut.
Abandoned on the steps of an orphanage at birth, Horace Parlan developed polio at the age of five, which left him with the use of only two fingers. His adoptive parents encouraged him to play the piano to strengthen his hands, and it was thus that he discovered his true calling in life, though he also studied pre-law at the University of Pittsburgh. He is perhaps best known for his work with Charles Mingus. He would only make one other Prestige session (with Booker Ervin), but he worked and recorded widely with a number of musicians, including a stint in the 1960s as "house pianist" for Blue Note. He also made 31 records as leader--with Blue Note in the 1960s. with the Danish label SteepleChase after his move to that country in 1972, and with other European labels.
Bassist Buddy Catlett built a significant regional reputation, living and working in primarily in Seattle, but also in Denver and other western cities, but he also had his share of the big time, including Louis Armstrong, Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie. Willie Bobo was one of the foremost Latin jazz percussionists of his era, working with Perez Prado, Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente while still a teenager, later with Mary Lou Williams, Cal Tjader, Herbie Mann and others. He recorded several albums for Verve as leader.
Goin' to the Meeting was the title of the Prestige LP release, and it was also the flip side of the 45 RPM single--"Please Send Me Someone to Love" was the A side. Esmond Edwards produced.
Sonny Stitt joins the organ-saxophone combo brigade. He had actually made one such record before: a live album at Chicago's Mckie's DJ Lounge, one of the last clubs standing as Chicago, by the 1960s, was losing its luster as one of the nation's jazz hot spots. That recording, for Chicago-based Argo Records, utilized a group of local musicians, including organist Eddie Buster.
This session brings Stitt together with one of the leading lights of the new organ combo soul jazz movement, and it's interesting to compare the two albums. Stitt was used to touring alone, and picking up groups of musicians in
the cities he visited, as with the Chicagoans on At the D. J. Lounge. Those musicians, whether just playing for the club audience or knowing they were to be recorded, knew that the people in the club had gotten dressed up and come out and paid money to hear Sonny Stitt. This was still a bullish era for jazz in Chicago--Mr. Kelly's was still thriving, and the Regal Theater--and there were first rate jazz musicians available. Eddie Buster's organ playing is excellent, and adds an unusual and satisfying texture to Stitt's bebop.
Playing with McDuff is a little different, but in a way not so different. In this case the city is New York, the mecca of jazz. Sonny Stitt is a stalwart veteran of Prestige's catalog (14 appearances before this one), but Jack McDuff is one of its hottest young stars. But still, it's Stitt coming to town and playing with a group of locals.
And in a way, the effect is comparable. More than is the case with a lot of the organ-saxophone combos, this is a Sonny Stitt session.
Jazz is a music of innovation, and it's easy to think of it as in an almost constant, churning state of out with the old, in with the new, but that's not exactly the way it is. Certainly change is a constant, and "in with the new" will always be the watchword, though not without resistance -- think of Charlie Parker in his day, Ornette Coleman in his. Or the commercial rejection of Miles Davis's nonet sessions that became Birth of the Cool. But that didn't necessarily mean out with the old, which is why jazz careers, health permitting, could last a long time, and Garvin Bushell could play with Bunk Johnson and Fletcher Henderson, and later with John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.
And it 's why there are not always clear dividing lines. It's why, in the 1950s, we heard swing-to-bop from players like Zoot Sims and Coleman Hawkins. And now, in 1962, are we hearing something similar, with Sonny Stitt going bop-to-funk? You can certainly hear it "Pam Ain't Blue," where Stitt's bebop rides easily along with McDuff's funk, and even more in "'Nother Fu'ther," which seems to capture the essence of bop-to-funk. All of the original compositions on this session are by Stitt, but they're geared to this blend of styles, and one of them, "Ringin' In," is really McDuff's number, and he makes the most of it. The three ballads are very much in Stitt's wheelhouse, with Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne's "Time after Time" getting a particularly beautiful reading.
That producer Esmond Edwards did not intend this to be strictly a jazz funk session is reflected in his choice of sidemen. McDuff regular Eddie Diehl is on guitar, but veterans Art Taylor and Ray Barretto provide the percussion, and they are the right men for the job.
I wondered if all of this added up to an album that would be more to the taste of the real jazz fan than the young crowd hopping on the funk jazz bandwagon. And I meant that to sound as snobbish as it does, when I prepared to write it, but as I got it down, I was changing my mind. Not everyone has to be totally committed to the pure soul of music. There's nothing wrong with being young, and wanting to dance, and caught up in the "what's happening now" spirit of the times. And if that zeitgeist is created at the fingertips of Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff, all the better. Besides, the popular jazz of an era--funk, swing, Peter Gunn--can be a gateway drug, and of the young cats and kitties who pick this up for the organ groove, at least some of them will stay for the complexities of a Sonny Stitt improvisation. For the rest...you're only young once. God bless 'em.
The album was called Stitt Meets Brother Jack, and it was also released--presumably at the same time, with the same album number--as 'Nother Fu'ther, which was also the first single off the album, divided onto two sides of 45 RPM release. Also on 45 were "Pam Ain't Blue" / "Ringin' In," and "Thirty Three Ninety Six," parts 1 and 2.
Gene Ammons played back to back sessions in October of 1961, with different lineups, for two different albums, although some tunes from each session would end up on each album.
Art Taylor and Ray Barretto supplied the percussion for both sessions, both of them familiar sounds to Prestige listeners, particularly Taylor, who had appeared on 65 earlier Prestige sessions. George Duvivier, who played on the October 18 session, was another regular, with 33 previous appearances.
Art Davis was the other bass player. He had first been heard on a Prestige recording just the week earlier,
appearing on Oliver Nelson's epic Afro-American Sketches. Ammons and producer Esmond Edwards blended youth and experience on both dates, with Davis (age 24) paired with Walter Bishop Jr. (age 34) on piano, while the veteran Duvivier (age 41) was matched with Patti Bown (30).
Both Davis and Bown had classical as well as jazz backgrounds. Bown moved early into jazz and stayed there, but Davis, regarded by many as one of the finest musicians of his generation, continued to work, and excel, in both worlds.
And he paid for it. Although he played with major symphony orchestras, those positions were hard to come by for an African American, and in 1969 he filed a discrimination lawsuit against the New York Philharmonic, which up until that time, had employed exactly one Black musician. He lost the lawsuit, but his activism led to the practice of blind auditions, where the judges could not see the race or gender of the applicant who was playing. But activism often comes with a price, and for Davis the price was a blacklist. He found it hard to get employment as a musician in the 1970s, and this was a man who was known to be John Coltrane's favorite bassist, who had been described as a "forgotten genius" by Ahmad Jamal and "beyond category" by critic Nat Hentoff.
Davis, for a while, had to find another line of work, and he did. I've talked about jazz musicians who found other things to do--George Wallingford going into the family air conditioning business, Wendell Marshall starting his own insurance agency--but Davis did them one better. He went back to school and got a doctorate in clinical psychology, and as gigs started coming his way again--both jazz and classical--he worked them around seeing patients.
Ammons, always a versatile player, covers a wide range of material in these two sessions.
There are three jazz standards, which allow Ammons and Co. to exercise their bebop chops. "The Masquerade is Over," composed by Allie Wrubel, was a hit for Jimmy Dorsey and others in 1939, then lay mostly dormant until until a doowop group, the Cleftones, picked it up in 1965, and the following year Cannonball Adderley became the first modern jazz musician to record it, after which it rapidly became a favorite of jazz, pop, and even rhythm and blues performers, "I'm Beginning to See the Light" is from the Ellington songbook, co-composed by Duke, Johnny Hodges and Harry James, it has the subtle chord changes that beboppers love. Scores of jazz singers, and singers who'd like a little jazz tinge to their repertoire, have recorded it, and it's been a favorite of instrumentalists as well. In 1961 alone, it was recorded by Ben Webster, Billy Byers, Ruby Braff, and Al Casey. And Lester Young's "Lester Leaps In" has remained a great vehicle for tenor sax players ever since Young and Count Basie introduced it in 1939, although it took a while to become the ubiquitous standard that it is. The first jazz musician to record it after Lester was James Moody in 1949 (for Prestige, on the same Swedish session that produced "Moody's Mood for Love"). Oscar Peterson recorded it in 1956, then Cannonball Adderley with Gil Evans in 1958, and after that, the floodgates opened.
"Travelin'" by Kenny Burrell isn't so much of a standard, but it's a nice tune, and this may be the first recorded version of it. Burrell doesn't seem to have recorded it until two years later, a session with Jimmy Smith.
The recent pop song catalog was mined for "The Breeze and I," "Song of the Islands," "Soft Summer Breeze," "Moonglow" and "The Five O'Clock Whistle." All of these except "Soft Summer Breeze" were older songs that had been resurrected during the 1950s.
One aspect of 1950s culture that's not often remembered was the rise of what would later come to be called "easy listening" music, but was in that era a rearguard action against rock and roll.
The playing of recorded music had become one of the predominant features of the radio airwaves by the 1950s, as live broadcasts from the big bands disappeared, and comedy and drama shows, and their stars, were lost to television. The first record was played over the air in 1911, when both radio and records were in their infancy. But the format was not to catch on right away, because a lot of restrictions were put on the way recorded music could be presented, and a lot of records simply couldn't be played over the air, because many artists wouldn't allow it, and their records were stamped "Not licensed for radio broadcast."
A real milestone in the history of recorded music on radio came
in 1935 with a program called "Make Believe Ballroom," hosted by a radio personality named Martin Block, who came to be so identified with the format that columnist Walter Winchell began calling him a "disc jockey," which was a pretty clever coinage, when you think about it. "Make Believe Ballroom" was created to fill a need--the need to fill in time between reports on the most dominant news story of the day. A carpenter named Bruno Hauptmann had gone on trial for the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. The trial lasted for over a month, and while it was going on, any regular radio programming would be broken into with bulletins. Since Block was standing by to fill in odd chunks of time, he couldn't very well have a real orchestra on hand, so make believe orchestras in a make believe ballroom were the next best thing.
Both Block and the show's title had a longer life than Bruno Hauptmann, who went to the electric chair on April 3, 1936. Recorded music on the air was growing in popularity, to the extent that musicians began to feel it was jeopardizing their livelihood, and the musicians' union called a strike against recording companies that lasted from 1942 to 1944. But recorded music on the air was a phenomenon that couldn't be stopped.
Having their records played over the air was the life's blood of the new independent record labels which had grown up like mushrooms after World War II, labels that specialized in jazz, rhythm and blues or country (although country did have its live broadcast outlets like Grand Old Opry and Louisiana Hayride). And then in the 1950s, rhythm and blues morphed into rock and roll and became the new lingua franca of teenage America.
And the bête noire of another group, for whom rock and roll was the music of the devil or jungle or the terminally tone deaf, depending on which outraged voice you were listening to. For those people, recorded music on the radio followed the "Make Believe Ballroom" format, and, indeed, still included "Make Believe Ballroom" and Martin Block, who hosted the show on WNEW radio in New York until 1954. After Block finally decamped for another station, "Make Believe Ballroom" continued on WNEW with new host Jerry Marshall for three years, and then when he left, with William B. Williams, who became synonymous with the programming concept and the rearguard action against rock 'n roll through the 1980s.
So, to wind up this digression, what were the "Make Believe Ballroom" type stations playing in the 1950s? They couldn't go on being pretend ballrooms hosting make believe big bands, because those big bands mostly didn't exist any more, and the era of the big band had given way to the era of the singer--1940s era holdovers like Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford, new crooners like Eddie Fisher and Connie Francis. And where did these singers get their songs? Sinatra, Tony Bennett and other recorded LPs of standards, but the real action in the 1950s--radio, jukeboxes--was on the 45 RPM record. The singers got their material from new Broadway musicals like My Fair Lady and The Pajama Game and Kismet, or from movie soundtracks like Three Coins in the Fountain or A Summer Place. or new songs from Tin Pan Alley that were often not very good, or by digging out some less likely songs from the past.
Radio actually hedged a lot of bets in the 1950s. For every Make Believe Ballroom on the one hand, or Alan Freed's rock 'n roll party on the other hand, there were stations, and a format, that had it both ways. In New York, when Jerry Marshall left WNEW to go and host a similar show for competitor WMGM, that station was also adopting a new format for its afternoon, after school slot--a format that had recently been created by an Omaha, Nebraska radio station owner who noticed that the same songs kept being played over and over on the jukebox in a diner he frequented, and from that observation, Top 40 radio was born, and the top jukebox hits of any given week put Eddie Fisher and Perry Como cheek by jowl with Elvis Presley and Fats Domino.
The jazz musicians of the 1950s and early 1960s did not go much to rock 'n roll for inspiration, although that would change later in the decade, but they could still go to Your Hits of the Week for songs to catch the ear of the something less than hard core jazz fan, and a populist like Gene Ammons would always have an ear open for that.
And so with the songs on this album. "The Breeze and I" was originally a classical piece written by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona in 1928, made into a hit with English lyrics by Jimmy Dorsey in 1940. and then returned to Your Hits of the Week in 1955 by the Italian singer Caterina Valente. "Song of the Islands" was written by Hawaiian politician/songwriter Charles E. King in 1916, and brought back to radio and jukeboxes in the late 1950s by Marty Robbins, Andy Williams, and Annette Funicello. Both of these were representatives of an odd genre of faux-exotic music called "exotica," described by bandleader Martin Denny, who more or less invented the genre, as "a combination of the South Pacific and the Orient...what a lot of people imagined the islands to be like...it's pure fantasy though." Which meant they were sort of novelty songs, but catchy and melodic. "The Five O'Clock Whistle" wasn't exotica, but it was a novelty, and catchy. Written by film composer Joseph Myrow in 1940, it was popularized by the orchestras of Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller, then brought back to life in 1955 as a pop instrumental (they had them in those days) by organist Lenny Dee. "Moonglow," written in 1933 by Will Hudson, has always been a favorite of dance orchestras, but found its way into top 40 radio in 1956, as part of a medley with the theme from Picnic, a movie vehicle for William Holden and Kim Novak, performed by George Cates, who would become Lawrence Welk's musical director.
"Soft Summer Breeze" was a minor 1955 hit for jazz/lounge pianist Eddie Heywood, who would have a much bigger hit the following year with "Canadian Sunset." "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman" was a 1948 hit for Dinah Washington, and did get a cover in the 1950s by the doowop group The Silhouettes, but that never went anywhere. It would become a career-making hit a few years later for Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, but it's probably here just because Ammons liked it.
Jazz versions of top 40 hits were never likely to make a dent on Top 40 radio, but they could get played by the Martin Block/Jerry Marshall/William B. Williams types, and find their way onto certain jukeboxes. "The Breeze and I," "Moonglow," and "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman" all did get released on 45, as did "Don't Go to Strangers," which had been a jazz and Make Believe Ballroom hit, even making it onto the top 40 charts for Etta Jones (on Prestige). Two Ammons originals, "Up Tight!" and "Carbow" also made it onto 45.
Both recording sessions were produced by Esmond Edwards. Up Tight! was released in 1961, Boss Soul! in 1963.
This was Roland Kirk's only recording for Prestige. He had been in the studio a couple of times, beginning in 1956 with a rhythm and blues session for King. Moving from Louisville to Chicago, he recorded for Argo in 1960, with Ira Sullivan.
Even in his rhythm and blues days, he was already experimenting with his exotic instruments, and with playing more than one horn at the same time. And if this was originally presented as a gimmick, it was never a gimmick. Hank Crawford first heard him playing as a 14-year-old on the rhythm and blues circuit, and remembers (quoted in Wikipedia):
He would be like this 14 year-old blind kid playing two horns at once. They would bring him out and he would tear the joint up...Now they had him doing all kinds of goofy stuff but he was playing the two horns and he was playing the shit out of them. He was an original from the beginning.
The other horns Kirk primarily used were the manzello and the stritch. The manzello is a modification of the saxello, itself a modification of the soprano saxophone. The stritch is a modified alto sax, straight like a soprano rather than curving into a bell like conventional alto (the manzello adds a bell to the conventional soprano structure). Playing all three at once, he could do something no other horn player could do: make chords. But he was also a brilliant flute player, and he made use of all sorts of sound-making devices, in the manner of Yusef Lateef (or Spike Jones), but playing all of them himself.
Kirk's musical knowledge and influences stretched from rhythm and blues to classical, from ragtime to electronic music. So it was interesting that Prestige paired him, for this outing, with a guy who essentially played one thing, though he did it very well.
But why not? I have a theory: given jazz musicians of quality and imagination, there's no such thing as a bad pairing. Here on Listening to Prestige, we've heard Eric Dolphy paired with Juan Amalbert's Latin Jazz Quintet, a session often criticized as "a mismatch, with Dolphy and the quintet paying little attention to each other," but it's not true. They're listening to each other, and their playing is affected by the context, in interesting ways. The same criticism was leveled by critics at Charlie Parker playing with Machito, or by Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet, and it was never true in either of those cases. Just listen, and you'll hear how they're relating to each other.
One of the most delightful jazz singles ever is "Slim's Jam," featuring a dead serious avant gardist (Parker), an irreverent cutup (Slim Gaillard), and a rhythm and bluesman (Jack McVouty, in Gaillard's language, McVea in anyone else's). And how about the Birth of the Cool nonet, who made some of the tightest, most trailblazing music in jazz history, led by Miles Davis, Lee Konitz (RIP), Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis, all of whom came from very different places and went very much in separate ways? Jazz is all about reaching out of your comfort zone, so putting together great musicians from different schools is always going to be worth listening to.
And in this case, although Kirk could draw on almost any musical language you cared to name, he had a solid grounding in soul jazz. You're certainly going to get things here that you would not necessarily get on any other Jack McDuff album, but you're going to get that "jazz with a beat" and that down home sound. Kirk plays the flute in addition to his big three instrumens, and also uses a siren.
Four of the numbers here are Kirk originals. Two are standards: "Makin' Whoopee," by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, was originally a vehicle for Eddie Cantor in a 1928 Broadway musical. "Too Late Now," by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner, was first sung by Jane Powell in the 1951 Powell-Fred Astaire vehicle, Royal Wedding. And one that you really wouldn't expect to find on a Jack McDuff soul jazz album, "The Skater's Waltz," by 19th century French composer Charles Emile Waldteufel. I'm not sure Waldteufel would recognize what these guys do to it, but he might also be given pause if he could visit the mid-20th century and hear his "Estudiantina Waltz" sung as "My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer."
Joe Benjamin and Art Taylor round out the quartet. Taylor is a veteran of many many Prestige sessions, and if you think of him as primarily a bop era drummer, from his work with Miles, Red Garland and others, prepare to think again. He establishes himself here as a giant of funk drumming.
The album was called Kirk's Work. It was later released as Roland Kirk--Pre-Rahsaan, which in fact it was. The name Rahsaan would come later, not out of Islamic religious leanings (he was never a Muslim), but because the name came to him in a dream. Even this early in his career, though, he had already been named by an oneirological impulse.. His birth name was Ronald, but a dream told him to switch the letters around.
"Kirk's Work" and "Doin' the 68" were the first 45 RPM release from the session, followed by "Funk Underneath," split into two parts, and then "Three for Dizzy," also a two-sider.
Esmond Edwards is listed as "Supervision" rather than as producer. I'm not sure of the difference.
Listening to Prestige Vol 4, 1959-60, now available from Amazon! Also on Kindle!
Volumes 1-3 are also available from Amazon.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.– Terry Gibbs
Buddy Tate began recording for Prestige in 1959, as part of a Shirley-Scott / Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis session, made his first recording as a leader near the end of that year. This was productive period for Tate, who was also leading a group at Harlem's Celebrity Club, a gig that lasted over two decades, from 1953-1774.
Tate's involvement with Prestige was both the with the newer soul jazz sound (Scott-Davis) and the older Swingville sound, both of them connected by rhythm and blues, and both of them connected by the talent scouting and producing abilities of Esmond Edwards.
Edwards, born and raised in Harlem, had first been employed by Bob Weinstock as a photographer. Then Weinstock had him produce a couple of sessions, and by 1958 had put him in the position of recording director, and for the next several years he produced most of Prestige's sessions. Edwards was familiar with the Harlem jazz scene to a degree that Weinstock was not. He knew about places like the Celebrity Club/ He brought Tate and other musicians downtown, and out to Englewood Cliffs, and he found and signed up the younger musicians who were creating the soul jazz sound.
For this session, Tate is joined by Clark Terry, who did not come from uptown in those days. After solid stints with both the Basie and Ellington bands, he had a steady gig as a member of Johnny Tonight Show orchestra. He had appeared on a very early Prestige session, in 1950 with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, and then not again until a September 1960 session with Scott and Davis. Terry is also responsible for the lion's share of the compositions on this session, beginning with "Groun' Hog," a slow blues which, at just over eight minutes, allows all the participants to stretch out and do some beautiful work, particularly Tommy Flanagan early on, and Tate later on. It's eight minutes well spent with some master players.
Carson's
20 Ladbroke Square is credited to Tate and Esmond Edwards as composers, and it's another blues, one that opens up and allows for some inspired blowing. The address is for an apartment building in the Notting Hill section of London, not an area traditionally associate with the blues. Well, maybe there's another Ladbroke Square. The rest of the session belongs to Duke Ellington, in ballad ("All Too Soon") and swinging ("Take the A Train") tempos. The combination of Ellington and these old pros is every bit as good as you would have imagined it to be.
Having dropped back in after a decade's hiatus, Clark Terry would stick around for the next couple of years and make a number of recordings for Prestige, New Jazz, Swingville and Moodsville.
Larry Gales was relatively new on the scene in 1960, and new to Prestige with this album, although he would hook up with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Johnny Griffin for several Prestige sessions, then move on to a career that found him playing with many of the greats, particularly Thelonious Monk for several years. He would take quite a while before making his own album as leader, however. His Monk tribute album, A Message from Monk, came out in 1990.
With Edwards producing, this Swingville release was titled Tate-a-Tate, after one of the other Clark Terry contributions. If it was Clark who came up with the pun, Buddy certainly liked it, as later projects were called Tete-a-Tate and Tate-a-Tete.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs
The most striking news from this Red Garland session is that Red gets on the organ bandwagon (if you can put an organ on a bandwagon) for one number, "Halleloo Y'All." That doesn't mean it's exactly a church organ, although all of three of the Garland originals from the first half of this session--which also means the first album from this session--have gospel-related titles. Or is "Back Slidin'" a sort of anti-gospel title? Certainly it smacks of sin more than salvation. And a fourth carries on Garland's frequent practice of reaching into the folk and blues traditions for unexpected inspiration, but in this case it's gospel: "Every Time I Feel the Spirit."
I don't know what Garland's religious leanings were, but this is hardly a sanctified album. He doesn't reach into the musical language of the church the way Ray Charles does, or the way singers like Otis Redding would. Garland is a jazzman through and through, and this is a jazz album, with Garland's signature block chords finding new voicings that almost remind one of that other great block chordist, Thelonious Monk, although Garland's voice, even when he's reaching outside what has been his comfort zone, is very much his own.
Art Taylor continues to be his go-to drummer, and Sam Jones, who first joined him for 1959's Red in Bluesville, is back on bass. As he did with Paul Chambers, Garland gives Jones plenty of room to express himself, and Jones comes through.
The gospel-tinged originals and the spiritual represent the first half of this Friday With Rudy. The second half is mostly given over to other composers: Harold Arlen for "Blues in the Night." Duke Ellington for "Rocks in my Bed," Bennie Benjamin (whose hits ranged from "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" in 1941 to "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" in 1977) for "I'll Never Be Free."
The session had two distinct themes and produced two distinct albums, with "I'll Never Be Free" the only one from the second group to join the gospel-y titles on 1960's Halleloo Y'All. One more Garland original, "Soul Burnin'," became the title tune of the second album, which included a couple of cuts from a 1961 session with Oliver Nelson, and was released in 1964, when soul music was really burnin'.
Ken McIntyre's early career with Prestige is an interesting tangle. This is his debut album as far as the public is concerned; it was the first one to be released, although it was recorded after his May 31 session featuring musicians from Boston with whom he had been playing regularly.
Why release this one first? Prestige's marketing department, which was essentially the same as its creative department--i.e., Bob Weinstock--must have felt that this was a stronger way to introduce a new artist creating a new and edgy kind of music.
New Jazz was becoming, more or less, Prestige's label for the edgier stuff--the new jazz, as it were. And it was happening. Ornette Coleman could no longer be ignored. Coltrane had opened a new door with Giant Steps. Eric Dolphy was on the brink of becoming Prestige's breakout star of the new jazz, and his presence on this album gives it a significance that perhaps Weinstock was afraid would not be so apparent with the other session.
Prestige is definitely telling us something with the album's title. In the wake of Ornette's Something Else!!!!, Tomorrow Is the Question!, The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century, McIntyre's debut is titled Looking Ahead.
McIntyre himself might not have agreed with the decision. He saw his first session, with the guys he had developed his music with, as a truer representation of his music. And maybe he was right, but maybe he was wrong. I don't want to judge either way. But Weinstock's classic approach--Let's put a bunch of cool cats together and see what develops--produced some exciting music, and it does so here.
All but one of the selections are McIntyre originals. The exception is the old Gershwin chestnut, "They All Laughed," and it's interesting to see how these modernists take it. They play the head remarkably straight, and they never really lose it. They go far enough out in their improvisations to be satisfying--and because they're that good, to be deeply satisfying--but they always have that ha-ha-ha, who's got the last laugh now? feeling. Who says the avant-garde can't have a sense of humor? Walter Bishop's solo brings them back into home territory, and they finish up with Gershwin again.
It's hard to top Gershwin, and of course McIntyre doesn't try. It's interesting to try and imagine what his original compositions, and the improvisatory flights of the soloists, but it's ultimately a mug's game. Which of the two sessions is better? It's close to impossible not to lean toward this one, but that may be because Eric Dolphy achieved such heights in his short career that looking back, we want to listen closely to everything he did. How difficult and experimental did this music sound to contemporary audiences? We can't hear it with their ears. Today it sounds mainstream. I can remember the excitement of being young and having discovered jazz not all that long ago, and living in New York for the first time, and going down to the Five Spot to hear Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, but I can't recover those ears. It's part of nostalgia for my youth now. I wouldn't go so far as to say that The Shape of Jazz to Come will ever exactly be comfort music, but it is now part of a tradition. And listening to Ken McIntyre and Eric Dolphy today, they sound like a couple of cats playing very good music in that tradition. I had never heard this album before, and I'm glad I'm getting the chance to hear it now. It's good jazz, real jazz. And I like his originals, especially "Lautir" and "Head Shakin'."
Looking Ahead and Stone Blues were the only two albums McIntyre would make for Prestige as leader, although he would appear on one other Prestige session backing up a vocalist.
A pleasure to have Gene Ammons back, but he's never far away. One of Prestige's most prolifically recorded artists is back after a hiatus of a couple of years (sadly due to drug bust and prison term) to host back-to-back sessions on consecutive days. One might have thought putting Ammons together with an organ would be a no-brainer, and Bob Weinstock and Esmond Edwards seem to have thought so too, because Johnny "Hammond" Smith shows up on the second day (he would also record, later, with Richard "Groove" Holmes). Putting anyone together with Ray Barretto
is clearly a good idea, and that happens on the first day, along with an all star rhythm section of Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor.
I'm always drawn to Barretto and his unique ability to bring conga rhythms to straight-ahead, and he's heard to good advantage here in every track, starting with "Close Your Eyes," the tune by "Queen of Tin Pan Alley" Bernice Petkere that's a favorite of pop singers and jazzers alike, and had an especial period of popularity after Tony Bennett's swinging 1955 hit version. We've heard in on one other remarkable Prestige album, the two guitars of Jimmy Raney and Kenny Burrell, assisted by Donald Byrd and Jackie McLean.
Ammons favors standards on this session, and he knows how to play them. Next up "Stompin' at the Savoy," another swing era classic that's had some great bebop interpretations, and this is one of them, starting out with an arresting vamp by Doug Watkins. Since Ammons is--unusually for him--the only horn on the session, he has to carry the weight of improvisation, and he does some lovely stuff, always swinging, always melodic, always interesting. Flanagan is strong with his solo, Watkins shines throughout, and both Taylor and Barretto contribute strongly.
The two Ammons originals, "Blue Ammons" and "Hittin' the Jug," deliver the down home blues that he does so well. As much as I'm drawn to Barretto, it's not at the expense of Art Taylor, who delivers throughout, and who delivers a short but wonderful solo on "Blue Ammons." Tommy Flanagan is at his bluesy best on "Hittin' the Jug," which is a particularly strong composition that's had a few other versions in spite of being so closely associated with Ammons.
"Confirmation" is the Charlie Parker tune, taking Ammons and company more to the bebop side of Jug's swing-to-bop, and all of these guys know how to do that. Watkins shines, and so does Taylor. Rodgers and Hart's "My Romance" is pure ballad, and "Canadian Sunset" a chestnut that's given new sparkle by Barretto. It's most familiar in the original version by Eddie Heywood with Hugo Winterhalter's orchestra, and Ammons turns it nicely into a saxophone piece.
The album was entitled Boss Tenor. The session produced two singles. "Hittin' the Jug" was backed with "Canadian Sunset," and a later 45 RPM release saw "Canadian Sunset" become the A side, joined by "Seed Shack" from a later session. Bob Weinstock produced this one, Esmond Edwards was in the studio the next day.
The session with Smith, also featuring Frank Wess, is definitely a meeting of like minds, despite a bit of a generation gap (Ammons was 36, Smith 28 at the time
of this session, but that was enough to put them in different eras--that's how fast jazz evolved). Ammons may not have been the first tenor man to record with an organ, but he certainly knew how to do it, and Wess's flute fits in perfectly too. They draw on a variety of
composers (including originals by Ammons and Wess) and play some first rate jazz, wild and soft, pensive and gutsy.
This session was split over two discs, both released later, when Ammons was serving a second, and longer, prison term. Velvet Soul was the title track of a 1964 release that also featured "In Sid's Thing," and the other tunes came out on Angel Eyes in 1965. "Angel Eyes" as a two-parter saw two different 45 RPM releases, some years apart, and "Velvet Soul" came out on 45 along with "A Stranger in Town" from a later session.
For his third Prestige album as leader, Johnny "Hammond" Smith stays with his regular bassist, George Tucker, and reunites with Oliver Nelson, on whose earlier date he contributed as a sideman. Art Taylor is back in town for a little Prestige action (he'd played the Lem Winchester session a few days previously), so he joins the session, as does Ray Barretto.
Nelson is content to play a supporting role here, not contributing any original compositions, which is
a little unusual, considering his reputation as a composer. He appears on three tracks--"Minors Allowed," "Rip Tide" and "Bennie's Diggin'." He plays a supporting role on "Minors Allowed," but he really steps out front with Walter Donaldson's "Rip Tide," an uptempo number with the energy and drive of an earlier era and the virtuoso dexterity of bebop. It really becomes his number, and Smith rides along with him, on a melody that sounds as though it were written for a soul jazz interpretation. Nelson leads off "Bennie's Diggin'." playing the head, but it becomes much more of a two-man show.
As for the works of other composers, "A Portrait of Jennie" was the title song for a 1940s movie, by an unlikely source for a sentimental movie theme composer. J. Russel Robinson began his career as a teenage ragtime composer in the first decade of the last century. He co-wrote songs with W. C. Handy, composed blues for the classic blues singers of the 1920s like Lucille Hegamin, and wrote the novelty classic "Who Is That Funny Reefer Man?" for Cab Calloway in the 1930s. He had some very big hits, like "Margie," and a lot of good songs. "Portrait of Jennie" had been recorded by Clifford Brown in 1955, but it didn't really become a jazz standard until later in the 1960s, after Smith had laid down his version. Smith keeps it short and to the point, at less than two and a half minutes it might have been a good candidate for a 45 RPM release, but such was not to be the case.
The single from this session was "The End of a Love Affair," by Edward Redding, about whom ad executive who just got lucky with one tune; his New York Times obituary lists his occupation as composer and lyricist, and they even credit him with a nickname ("Bud"), so he must have been known to someone, and they give a list of mid-level lounge singers (Julie Wilson, Jane Morgan) that he wrote for, but no other songs. Still, "End of a Love Affair" must have made him a wealthy man all by itself. It's been recorded by nearly every pop singer, lounge singer, jazz singer and cabaret singer, as well as by a host of jazz notables, not that being recorded by jazz notables ever made anyone wealthy. It's a good song, but more than that, it has a message that at least someone on any night in any cabaret is going to want to hear. Smith's version features a catchy rhythm set by Ray Barretto, and if I had been Bob Weinstock, choosing between this and "Portrait of Jennie" for my jukebox release, I too would have gone for "End of a Love Affair."
virtually nothing is known except that he wrote "The End of a Love Affair," music and lyrics both. He doesn't seem to have been a janitor or
The final standard is Erroll Garner's "Misty," and here feels no need to stay within the bounds of a melody everyone knows so well, so he opens up nicely on the improvisation. "An Affair to Remember" is not the treacly movie theme, but a Smith original, as is "Talk That Talk," a title that sends a message of nothing but soul jazz, and that's what Smith delivers. That it became the title track of the album shows that Weinstock knows the direction Snith is headed in.
Esmond Edwards produced. The release was on New Jazz.
Just when I had despaired of ever seeing another bad pun in a jazz composition, Lem Winchester comes to my rescue with "Lem 'n Aide" from this session, and better than that, we have the album's title, Lem's Beat, a sly reference to Winchester's previous career as a police officer in Wilmington, Delaware.
Lem's aide on this session is Oliver Nelson, who wrote three of the tracks, played saxophone and is credited as arranger. Both Nelson and Winchester were to have lives cut short, and not attained the kind of reputation that longer lives might have afforded them. It's good they found each other for this session.
Curtis Peagler of the short-lived but interesting Modern Jazz Disciples rounds out the front line. Peagler mostly faded into obscurity with the rest of the disciples, but the little that he did put on record is worth attending to. He's joined on two tracks by a fellow Disciple, Billy Brown. The piano duties on the other tracks are handled by Roy Johnson, about whom I can find no other information. Perhaps he was someone Winchester knew from his early days in Delaware. The rest of the rhythm section is Wendell Marshall, ubiquitous, and Art Taylor, not heard from in a couple of months, both more than welcome.
Oliver Nelson, already recognized as one of the finest composers of his era, contributes three tunes, the melodic "Eddy's Dilemma," the riffy "Lem & Aide," and "Your Last Chance," which combines the best of both worlds. Nelson becomes the dominant voice on these, but Winchester is a strong partner, and Peagler proves to be an excellent choice as second saxophone, falling right in with Nelson's ideas and bringing his own voice to them.
Roy Johnson's contribution is "Lady Day," the shortest cut of the day at 2:51, haunting and moving, with Winchester and Peagler taking center stage.
"Just Friends" is back, and it's good to hear such a different take on it. And let's trust that they were all friends, and needed no persuasion to be so, since the other outside composition is the movie theme "Friendly Persuasion." My guess...Roy Johnson was a friend of Lem's from the old days? And from the compatibility of Nelson and Curtis Peagler, and the fact that piano duties were shared between Johnson and Billy Brown, maybe the disciples were old friends of Oliver's? And by this time, producer Esmond Edwards had to be pretty tight with Wendell Marshall and Art Taylor. "Friendly Persuasion" is a sentimental ballad by Dmitri Tiomkin that Winchester deals with by not trying to avoid the sentimentality, and it's a good choice. A nice number for friends to pitch in on.
Two days in the studio with Arnett Cobb and a quintet, rhythm section augmented by congas, but with a different piano player and a different conguero each day, continuing the pattern he had established on his previous Party Time session for Prestige, with Ray Bryant and Ray Barretto.
The piano guys were two more of the best young players on the scene, 30-year-old Tommy Flanagan and 25-year-old Bobby Timmons. Flanagan had made his Prestige debut in 1956, newly arrived from Detroit, on an abbreviated Miles Davis session.
He would shortly thereafter be tabbed for one of the decade's most important albums, Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus, and would make his debut as leader the following year with a trio: Overseas, recorded in Sweden. By the time of this recording, he was a solid regular with the label, with 15 recording dates as leader or sideman.
Flanagan's versatility could be amply illustrated right at this moment in time: just two weeks before he went to Englewood Cliffs to record with one of the veteran masters of good-time, mainstream jazz, he had seen the release of a session with young players who would be standing jazz on its year: John Coltrane's Giant Steps.
Bobby Timmons had recorded once previously for Prestige, with Clifford Jordan and John Jenkins, but he was best known for his work with Blue Note, particularly with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
Danny Barrajanos took the conga chair for the first day. He was primarily known for his work with Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba. Buck Clarke, who came in for the second day, was more of a jazz figure, with credits that would include Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock and Les McCann.
Latin percussion was still a somewhat outside-the-box idea for a modern jazz album, and one might think of Cobb as an inside-the-box kinda guy, but boy, does he know how to make it swing! Listen to the work they do on "Blue Lou," composed by Edgar Sampson, one of the few composer/arranger/ musicians of his era to move back and forth between mainstream and Latin jazz. He played with Duke Ellington, Rex Stewart, Fletcher Henderson and Chick Webb (for whom he composed "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "Don't Be That Way"); and worked as an arranger for Marcelino Guerra, Tito
Rodgriguez and Tito Puente. And raised a musical family--his daughter Grace co-wrote "Mambo Inn" with Mario Bauzá. "Blue Lou" is a killer, with Barrajanos pushing the beat throughout, getting some wild and crazy sax playing of Cobb and smoking solos from Flanagan, Taylor and himself.
"Blue Lou" was followed on the session by a Cobb original called "Blue Me." One can't help but wonder if the original title had been a mite dirtier.
The second day found the musicians in a mellower mood, but Buck Clarke shows how much a conguero can contribute there, too. Listen to "The Nitty Gritty," a Cobb original. It's interesting that Cobb didn't use any Bobby Timmons originals, as hot a composer as he was then. But Timmons adds his soul jazz piano to Cobb's already soulful playing, and his Illinois Jacquet-style honking.
The sessions became a little mixed on record. "Down by the Riverside" is Timmons and Clarke, but it Arnett Cobb--More Party Time, which otherwise comprised tunes from the first day. The traditional spiritual joined Stephen Foster's "Swanee River" as tunes you wouldn't necessarily bring to a modern party. "Fast Ride" was slipped back to Movin' Right Along to complete the trade. Both albums were released before 1960 was out.
was included on
"Lover Come Back to Me," from the Flanagan/Barrajanos session, was a two-sided 45 RPM single release. The Sigmund Romberg melody is from New Moon, the last operetta to be produced on Broadway. One tends to think of operetta as a form more likely to produce cornball chestnuts like "Stout Hearted Men," which is also from New Moon, but "Lover Come Back to Me" has proved a most satisfying challenge to many a modern jazz musician. So has another aria from New Moon, "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise," which Cobb recorded on the second day.
"Ghost of a Chance" was the single from the second session to be released on 45 RPM, as the flip side of "Smooth Sailing," from Cobb's first Prestige album.
Esmond Edwards produced both sessions.
VERY CLOSE TO BEING READY TO TAKE ORDERS FOR LISTENING TO PRESTIGE VOL 3!
"April in Paris" was written in 1932 by Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg for a Broadway show called Walk a Little Faster. The show was not exactly a flop, not exactly a hit (118) performances, but the song was an instant classic, and it's never wanted for performers eager to take it on. It's had vocal interpretations from Sinatra to Ella and Louis to Shirley Basey, but the most successful, and still the definitive version was, amazingly enough, a jazz instrumental. Count Basie recorded it in 1955: bold, brassy, and so exuberant that it demanded not just "one more time" but "one more once" after that.
But a great tune is always going to find great artists with new approaches. In 1956 alone there were ten new jazz recordings, including piano versions by Errol Garner, Thelonious Monk and Nat "King" Cole, and a treatment by Thad Jones, who had contributed a memorable solo to the Basie recording.
In 1959, Benny Golson was ready to add his voice to the "April in Paris" story, and his was a very different approach from Basie's: moody and subdued. Paris in the springtime may be a time for lovers, but for every lover there's a broken heart, and a sad story to tell in a late night bistro. Golson has the thoughtful commiseration of Tommy Flanagan, but for the most part this is is his tone poem, and he plays it with deep understanding.
But he snaps out of the meditative mood with "Tippin' on Through." This is the composer of "Blues March," a hit for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and "Tippin'" has some of that march feeling to it. It seems like an odd fit, but Golson has proved it can work, and in a way, jazz and march compositions have certain commonalities, They both have a predilection for riff-based melodies, at least as funneled through the musical imagination of Benny Golson.
Tommy Flanagan takes a world-weary approach to intro to the next number, as though baubles, bangles and beads, no matter how they jing-jing-aling, are still the stuff of vanity. Golson and Curtis Fuller soon set him straight, kicking off a celebration.
The blues take center stage for the rest of the session, with two Golson compositions, "Tom Hurd's Blues" and "Blue Streak." The blues really never do grow old.
Doug Watkins and Art Taylor rounded out the quintet. Watkins had spent much of the previous year in Europe with Donald Byrd. He would continue to be a mainstay sessions for Prestige and other labels until his untimely death in 1962, the result of an auto accident. Gettin' With It was produced by Esmond Edwards, released on New Jazz. We have two thirds of the Jazztet-to-be here, as on Golson's previous New Jazz recording--and as on a Savoy album cut during the fall, under Fuller's leadership, as the Curtis Fuller Jazztet: the first time that name was used, with Lee Morgan as the third Tet. The next time it would be used would be just six weeks away, in early February, on the Argo release Meet the Jazztet, with Art Farmer. Farmer, Golson and Fuller had first united as the Jazztet for club dates in November.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.
Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.
--Dave Grusin
An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.
This is first release in Prestige's third and most controversial subsidiary label, Moodsville. Moodsville wasn't, and still isn't, very controversial, but maybe a little. The purposes of Swingville and Bluesville were pretty clear, but what was Moodsville, exactly? Swing veterans like Coleman Hawkins played on the first, blues musicians like Willie Dixon on the second, but Moodsville's first recording was by mainstream Prestige regulars Red Garland and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, so what set it apart?
Jackie Gleason, beginning in 1953, had released a series of albums that more or less invented mood music. The first was called Jackie Gleason presents Music for Lovers Only.The album cover had two cigarettes, two wine glasses, and a lady's clutch purse. The music was syrupy and easy to listen to. It did feature jazz great Bobby Hackett, but beyond that it had nothing much to recommend it except that it set the all time record for most consecutive weeks in Billboard's top ten.
What accounted for its amazing popularity, and the popularity of the Gleason recordings that followed it? Gleason's name (which actually may have been all he gave to the project)? The romantic cover art? Or maybe Gleason had just tapped into a hitherto unrealized visceral human desire for...mood music?
Well, why not? As Gleason realized, if Clark Gable needed romantic background music to play a love scene in a movie, shouldn't some guy in Brooklyn need it even more?
Mood music became elevator music, became Easy Listening. Bobby Hackett or no, it was, in the slang of the day, strictly from Squaresville. So is Moodsville really a subdivision of Squaresville?
This question was debated on the Organissimo internet forum, an often interesting place for jazz discussion. Some said yes, sort of: "Generally, my perception is that the Moodsville albums are more sedate, simpler, and somewhat less 'jazz intensive." Scott Yanow, reviewing for Allmusic, tended to agree: "[Moodsville] was designed to provide mood music for courting couples... Due to the overly relaxed nature of much of this music and the lack of variety, this is not one of the more essential Red Garland sets."
But the Organissimo consensus, and a fairly informed consensus, was otherwise. Contributor Dan Gould, who had discussed the question with Weinstock, recalls:
One thing Bob told me is that the number of albums, and the creation of the subsidiary labels, were a direct result of cash flow. In order to avoid showing too much in profit and paying taxes on it, Bob wanted to put the money into production.
Which, from a vantage point of the jazz-starved new millennium, is a very nice thing to hear--that a small independent label fiercely devoted to modern jazz would have to worry about the problem of showing too much in profit. Chris Albertson, who produced a number of Prestige sessions, had this to say:
I really don't think there was any serious marketing decision involved in the creation of the Bluesville, Swingville, Moodsville, etc. series. Remember, these were not stand-alone subsidiary labels--it was always Prestige Moodsville, Prestige Swingville, etc. I don't recall if the pricing was different--if so, that may have been a factor. As a dj when these first came out, and later as a Prestige employee, I never thought of them as anything but Prestige albums with a series name.
Sometimes I think that consumers/collectors make more out of such details than the facts call for. When I produced a session, it was a Prestige session--whether it came out on Prestige, Prestige Bluesville or Prestige Swingville, made no difference.
I was never aware of there being any deliberate effort to alter the nature of a Moodsville album from that of, say, somebody's ballad album. If there ever was an instruction from Bob Weinstock to do so, it must have flown off my desk--a desk that saw its share of memos!
Albertson was not yet aboard when this session kicked off the Moodsville line. Esmond Edwards produced, and he didn't exactly have a reputation for pandering. And it's hard to imagine Red Garland, Sam Jones, Art Taylor or Eddie Davis deciding to dumb down their music.
So how does it sound? It sounds great. It's an afternoon devoted to ballads, which are lovely to listen to, but ballads have always been a part of jazz. They play the melody, and with beautiful melodies like this, why wouldn't you? But they use it as a springboard to improvisation, just like a real jazz session, and the improvisation is of the quality of a real jazz session, and what else do you need? If the Moodsville label let the prospective buyer know that he could probably safely play it for an evening at home with his girlfriend who'd stalk out the door if he put on Change of the Century, the names of the musicians should have let him know that he wouldn't be embarrassed playing it for his college roommate with the goatee and the sunglasses after dark.
Davis plays on three numbers, "We'll Be Together Again," "When Your Lover Has Gone," and Garland's own "Softly Baby," the last named a recording that did get a new life in the new millennium when it was featured on the TV show American Horror Story.
"We'll Be Together Again" is a particularly beautiful and haunting melody, written by Carl T. Fischer, who has the distinction of being one of the few Native Americans to have a significant career in jazz. Fischer was Frankie Laine's accompanist at the time he wrote the song, and Laine contributed the lyrics. Davis is sensitive to the melody, but at the same time puts his own spin on it. If this were on a jukebox at a place where I hung out, I'd play it a lot.
Davis also played on Garland's "Untitled Blues," which didn't make the Moodsville cut, but was included on later CD packages.
This is a great album if you're in the mood, but what music is that not true of? From Lefty Frizzell to Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, you'd pull out the album, slide out the vinyl, and place the needle on the first groove if you were in the mood to hear it.
The album cover emphasizes Moodsville. Other than that, the album is eponymously titled.
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