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.

 

Listening to Prestige 613: Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: Shoutin'

This is more of the same from Willis Jackson -- the same group he's been working with, which includes a young Pat Martino on guitar (interesting that he had his old bandmate Jack McDuff were both bringing along young guitarists who would become giants over the next couple of decades), the same rhythm and blues derived jazz funk sound, the same mix of funky originals and standard ballads. And why not? Good for listening, good for dancing. A lot of parties in the mid-sixties rolled back a lot of rugs and dropped a lot of needles within the grooves of a Willis Jackson record. The man was a pro, and he delivered.

Most unusual track on the oblm, and the source for half the album's title -- "Boss St. Louis Blues," which sets down a bossa nova and then blows some solid funk over it, with Jackson in top form. Once they get the beat down, they can get wild...and they do. Best for my money, the other half of the title. "Shoutin'" is what you want to hear from this band -- the good old rhythm and blues, the hot new funk, some fleetfooted guitar styling by Martino.

Boss Shoutin' is the name of the album. No 45 RPM single releases from this one, maybe because they tended to go long on the individual cuts. Or maybe they knew Prestige wasn't planning a single, so they figured they could stretch out. Either way, it works, as the playing heats up, the deeper they get into a tune. Ozzie Cadena produced.

Listening to Prestige 588: Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: After Hours

LISTEN TO ONE: Gator Tail

 Willis Jackson worked a series of recording sessions for Prestige in 1963 and 1964 with his working band at the time: Carl Wilson on organ, Frank Robinson on trumpet, Bill Jones on guitar, Joe Hadrick on drums. They weren't musicians who had recording careers outside of these sessions with Jackson, and I could find no biographical material on any of them, but they knew how to play Jackson's kind of music, or they wouldn't have stayed with him, because Jackson's was an ensemble that always found work. 

Jackson's best-known ensemble, the one he brought to Prestige in 1959, featured Jack McDuff as organist, and he was a tough act to follow, but Jackson didn't put his side men into a cookie cutter. Wilson is his own man on organ, and his own man is a wild man.

For the second of these Prestige sessions--and thereafter--Bill Jones was replaced by  a guitar player named Pat Azzara, who would go on to make a name for himself, only the name wasn't Azzara. He was to change it to Pat Martino.

The ensemble, with different bass players, would record five studio sessions and one live, a date that makes Miles Davis's contractual marathon look like the Minute Waltz. This was four sets at the club Allegro in New York City, and Prestige recorded them all, and released them all on four albums. And why not? This was a working band, that toured hard and played hard, and audiences loved them. They could play all night, and it could have been, and should have been, and was saved for posterity.

The LP from the March session was entitled Loose. It followed Jackson's template, and set the pattern for all the sessions to follow--some standards, some recent hits ("When My Dreamboat Comes Home" was both--an old song refurbished for the young crowd by Fats Domino), some riff-based rhythm and blues, or as we now called it, soul jazz. Jazz with a beat. "Secret Love" became a two-sided 45 RPM single, and "Y'All" was the flip side of "Arrivederci Roma" from an earlier session.

The two May sessions were parceled out to two LPs, Grease 'n' Gravy and The Good Life. The 45s were "Gra-a-avy" / "Brother Elijah" and "Troubled Times" / "As Long as He Needs Me." The October session became More Gravy, with the title tune and "Pool Shark" broken out on 45. January of 1964 became Boss Shoutin'. The teenaged Mr. Azzara, making his recording debut, is described in H. G. MacGill's liner notes as "a combination of early Kenny Burrell, Tiny Grimes, a little Jimmy Raney and the beginnings of a highly original style of his own."

Each of the Allegro sets went onto its own album--Jackson's Action! Recorded Live; Live!Action; Soul Night Live!; and Tell It.... "Jive Samba" from the first set, two-sided, was the only 45 RPM release. All of the live sessions, when re-released on CD, were credited to Willis Jackson with Pat Martino.

Ozzie Cadena produced all, including the live sessions.

Listening to Prestige 579: Willis Jackson

During the pre-rock and roll era of American pop music, there were, very generally, two types of singers: the jazz-influenced singers like Bing Crosby and Nat "King" Cole, who were, more or less, popularizers of Louis Armstrong, and the bel canto-influenced singers like Tony Martin and Jerry Vale, who were, more or less, popularizers of Mario Lanza. And there was a deep divide between them, bridged by no one except possibly Dean Martin (Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett were Italian, but they were definitely in the jazz-influenced camp).

So, could the divide be crossed by a tenor saxophone player with a jazzman's touch and rhythm and blues in his soul? Willis (Coda di Alligatore) Jackson seemed to think so, as he devoted virtually a whole album to jazz renditions of Italian pop songs.

LISTEN TO ONE: Al di La

It worked better than you might think. The rhythm and blues honkers tended to have a sweet sentimental side, perhaps modeled on Earl Bostic, and the Italian ballads fit into that. Most of this album is unavailable online, so I wasn't able to hear how Jackson handled "Volare," for example, but I did listen to his "Arrivederci Roma." That's a melody that's hard to listen to without hearing Eddie Fisher crooning it or Mario Lanza giving it the full melodramatic treatment, even though it does start out with a Latin rhythm from Montego Joe, but once Jackson begins improvising on it -- no, make that once he really gets into improvising

on it -- its jazz possibilities open up. "Arrivederci Roma" on the album is 5:43 in length; the 45 RPM single version is edited down to 2:28, and that's the version which is currently available on YouTube. 

Technology had certainly advanced to the point where you could have fit 5:43 onto a 45 RPM record, so why shorten it it into what in those days would have been called the Readers' Digest condensed version? My guess...that's what the market wanted. The market in those days was radio play, which meant the pop music stations or the Black-oriented stations on your AM dial. FM radio, and songs like "Like a Rolling Stone" or "MacArthur Park" or "Alice's Restaurant" were still in the future, and your radio stations wanted manageable chunks of music between the disc jockey patter and the commercials. Jukeboxes wanted something you could dance to for three minutes or less before putting another nickel in. And presumably it was assumed that the customer putting that nickel in the slot to hear Willis Jackson wanted to hear Willis Jackson, because the 45 RPM condensed versions of jazz album cuts tended to excise everything except the featured soloist. So no Bucky Pizzarelli, authentic Italian-American though he was, no Gildo Mahomes.

The other cut I was able to listen to is "Al di là," which had been that year's Italian entry in the

Eurovision Song Contest (it finished 5th). Eurovision was still relatively new in 1962, and its entries are, even to this day, not guaranteed much stateside audience (unless they're by Abba), but "Al di là" hd gotten some attention when Connie Francis recorded it as the B side of a minor hit, and it worked for the theme of the album, and was the occasion for some very nice guitar-saxophone interplay. Jackson, with Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings, was one of the originators of the saxophone-guitar-organ soul jazz sound, but this is an altogether different way of blending these two instruments.

Bucky Pizzarelli and Gildo Mahones had both recently made their Prestige debuts, Pizzarelli accompanying Etta Jones and Mahones with Ted Curson. Pizzarelli would have a couple more sessions over the next few years accompanying singers, but most of his acclaimed career would be elsewhere. Mahones would stay longer in the Prestige orbit, including three albums as leader.

Neapolitan Nights was released on Prestige--not Moodsville. "Arrivederci Roma" was the A side of a single which had "Y'All," from a very different session, on the B side. More thematically paired was another single, "Mama" (which had been a 1959 hit for Connie Francis) and "Neapolitan Nights."

Ozzie Cadena produced.

The one Jackson original title on the album was "Verdi's Vonce," Jackson's blues tribute (according to the liner notes) to Verdi. I would love to hear it. It was also included on a compilation album called Soul Stompin': The Best of Willis Jackson.

Listening to Prestige 573: Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: Cachita

 Willis Jackson becomes the latest Prestige artist to hop on the bossa nova bandwagon...sort of. The album is three tunes by Latino composers, two popular songs of the day, and one Jackson original. But I wonder if Prestige's marketing department was paying much attention to the product in this case. The three Latin tunes -- "Cachita," "Amor" and "Mama Inez" -- are all by Cubans. "Mama Inez," in fact, as "Ay, Mama Ines," composed by Eliseo Grenet, is a Cuban archetype. A 1933 article in Vanity Fair describes it thus:

The song of Cuba—a hundred dark throats have sung it; a thousand brown feet have danced it. O Mother Inés . . . all the Negroes drink coffee, drink thick black coffee. 0 Mother Inés, where are you hiding? We have searched for you everywhere and we have not found you. We have searched for you in the tough districts of Jesu-Maria—and we have not found you. Oh Cuba, my mother, my sister, my beloved! 

English language lyrics by L. Wolfe Gilbert are credited by many with popularizing the rhumba in North America. Here are some of them:

Oh, Mama Inez,
Oh, Mama Inez,
They hum and strum,
That's the rhumba for you.

Oh, Mama Inez,
Oh, Mama Inez,
Though others come,
Their "The Rhumba" won't do.

When I first saw the shebango,
I fell so hard for the tango,
But now this brand new fandango's got me
Like nothing's got me before!
Oh, Mama Inez,
Oh, Mama Inez,
No Cuban rum's
Like the rhumba for me.

Grenet fled Cuba after some of his song lyrics were seen as subversive by the Machado regime. He went to Europe and then to the United States, where he opened his own nightclub on 52nd Street, El Yumuri, where he is credited with introducing the conga to the US.

Montego Joe and Juan Amalbert were both native New Yorkers, Joe (Roger Sanders) African American, and Amalbert, later Emmanuel Abdul-Rahim, with a Puerto Rican father.

So, adding that all up: bossa nova? Not hardly. Kenny Burrell adds a couple of nice samba licks, but that's about it.

Do we care? We do not. This is wonderful music, a mixture of the mainstream jazz of Willis Jackson

who, like so many of the musicians who came out of the rhythm and blues subset of jazz, is unfairly overlooked, and Latin jazz, generally disgracefully overlooked by mainstream audiences. Ranker.com, a website where contemporary participants vote for the greatest this or that, lists Jackson at number 151 on their list of greatest saxophone players, and that's only because I added him. DownBeat's reader polls of this era, the era of the mambo and the cha-cha and the bossa nova, completely overlook Machito and Puente, Prado and Cugat, even in their dance band category. Allmusic.com's reviewer Ron Wynn gives the album four stars, with the note, "His second great album that year," so somebody is listening,

And for all the sales that Willis Jackson generated for Prestige in this era, somebody wasn't taking him seriously enough. Hence the marketing division's decision to market this as a bossa nova album, with bargain bin graphics on the front cover, and liner notes that must have been written by someone from the mailroom. Jose Paulo is listed in the session logs from jazzdisco.org as playing congas and timbales, on the back sleeve of the album as playing guitar. Jazzdisco isn't always right, but they're probably around 98 percent right, and since all of Paulo's other credits are percussion, I'm going to go with them.
Allmusic.com credits him on bongos, congas, guitar and timbales, but they're not always right either.

"I Left My Heart in San Francisco" is given the full-on Latin treatment. "What Kind of Fool Am I?" is more a straight-on ballad, and "Shuckin'" is Jackson playing Jackson, with Eddie Calhoun and Roy Haynes doing the rhythmic work. Calhoun was Errol Garner's regular bassist from 1955 through 1966 (he's on Concert by the Sea), and did very little other recording. Shuckin' became the title of a rerelease of the album, this time with liner notes by Philadelphia disc jockey Del Shields, mostly griping about how Willis Jackson doesn't get the respect he deserves from jazz snobs. Unfortunately, he was right.

"What Kind of Fool Am I?" and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" were the 45. The album was a Prestige release, Ozzie Cadena producing.

 

Listening to Prestige 558: Johnny "Hammond" Smith / Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

 It seems inevitable that two of Prestige's most dependable soul jazz stars would get together, and for this session, the inevitable happened. Willis Jackson had been one of the pioneers of the organ/saxophone combo with Jack McDuff, who had moved on to a solo career. Johnny "Hammond" Smith was one of the hottest new organ talents around. So the pairing of the veteran and the hot newcome was a natural. 

For a veteran and a newcomer, they weren't exactly far apart in age--Jackson was 30, Smith 29. But Jackson had made his first hit record in 1948, as the 16-year-old saxophone soloist of the Cootie Williams hit, "Gator Tail." Williams was the

bandleader, but Jackson was the star, and that hit record gave him the nickname he would carry with him for the rest of his life.

This would be their only joint venture. Smith had already been working with Seldon Powell, another veteran whose career in rhythm and blues went back to the 1940s, and would soon hook up with Houston Person, launching that soul jazz titan's career. Both Jackson and Smith were well into careers that would place each of them among Prestige's most-recorded stars. They are accompanied here by two of Smith's regulars, Eddie McFadden and Leo Stevens, and most of the cuts are Smith compositions. "Y'All" is by Jackson. "Besame Mucho" is the Latin standard, and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" the traditional spiritual. What better vehicle for soul jazz than a spiritual? And they get down with it, making it my favorite cut on the album, and one that I'm surprised they didn't pull out for a two-sided 45 RPM single.

In fact, there were no singles from the album, which is a bit of a surprise. Esmond Edwards produced, and the album's title was Johnny "Hammond" Cooks with Gator Tail. the title reflecting the name by which the young organist would eventually be known, as he would drop the "Smith."

Listening to Prestige 544: Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: Thunderbird

 Question: What's the difference between classic rhythm and blues and soul jazz? 

Answer: About three minutes.

That's the difference between the Lester Young-influenced, Illinois Jacquet-influenced, Texas roadhouse-bred, Apollo-developed, blues-based sound tenor saxophone wailing and improvising over a rock-solid groove in the 78-45 RPM era, and the LP era. Jazz With a Beat, jazz with a funky beat. And with, in the soul jazz era, a little more room to open up and try different improvisational attacks over that groove.

What about the organ, that distinctive signature sound for soul jazz? Doesn't that make it different?

Not entirely. Bill Doggett, Sil Austin, Doc Bagby and others had had rhythm and blues hits. Jack McDuff had joined the Gator to play rhythm and blues, and when the group signed with Prestige, they brought their saxophone-organ-guitar sound with them, and used it to play the longer form jams--in other words, the ones they had always played on the chitlin' circuit, but had had not been able to bring to the recording studio.

Willis Jackson had brought McDuff into his group as a bass player, and had made the inspired choice to convert him to an organist, so he knew something about nurturing organ talent. That means it's no surprise to find Freddie Roach, on the cusp of a breakout career, joining Jackson's band for this session. Roach had recorded two albums with Ike Quebec for Blue Note, and by midsummer of 1962 he was back at Blue Note to record four albums as leader. He would return to Prestige for a couple more sessions in the late 1960s, after which he stopped recording. He lived in France for a while, then California, by which time his interest had switched from jazz to the theater, where he gained something of a reputation--apparently under another name--as a playwright. He died in 1980.

Roach, along with frequent Jackson collaborators Bill Jennings, Wendell Marshall and Frank Shea, create the groove. Ray Barretto, in his second sax-organ soul jazz gig, adds the extra touch that he always does. And Jackson provided the rest. All of this comes together most emphatically on the Jackson composition "Thunderbird." When you put "Bird" in the title of a jazz composition, it's always going to suggest one thing. Bird With a Beat certainly became a rhythm and blues staple, with "Now's the Time" becoming the basis for Paul Williams's hit instrumental "The Hucklebuck." Here, there's no one Parker tune that "Thunderbird" takes off from, but Bird's improvisations on the blues are a strong inspiration.

Willis Jackson had become a mainstay of Prestige records and would remain so throughout the 1960s. This, produced once again by Esmond Edwards, was his seventh album for the label. It was released on Prestige, as was the 45 from the session, "Thunderbird," also the title of the album, "Thunderbird" was the flip side of Jackson's version of "Jambalaya."

Listening to Prestige 514: Willis Jackson

LISTEN TO ONE: Jambalaya (45 RPM)

 This is like one of those Prestige early days sessions, back in 1949-1951, when a band would come in to cut four sides for a couple of 78 RPM releases. In this case, though, the four sides are to flesh out an album which the Prestige brain trust must have suddenly realized needed fleshing out--they had more than enough material in the can for an album, not quite enough for two albums. So they got the band back together for one more session, although none of this material would actually be released for a few more years.

"Getting the band back together" mostly meant Willis Jackson, whose star maintained a steady wattage, and Jack McDuff, whose incandescence was steeply ascendant, more so that Bill Jennings, whose star was

fading, and who in fact did not solo to speak of on these four cuts, which is too bad, because he was a wonderful guitarist. But he still adds to the sound of a very tight group with three front men who have logged a whole lot of hours together.

The session features two originals by Jackson, and two songs by very different composers. "Without a Song" was written by Vincent Youmans, an early composer for musical theater, for a 1929 musical, Great Day, which was pretty much of a flop, but did produce two memorable songs, this one and "More Than You Know." A favorite of big-voiced singers, it's also had many jazz incarnations. 

The other is a little more unusual. Hank Williams is one of the great American songwriters and, like so many others in the American tradition, deeply influenced by the blues, but country songs and jazz musicians have rarely crossed paths. This was almost certainly the first cover of a Hank Williams song by a jazz musician, and I might have guessed the only one...but not quite. In 1994, Joe Pass collaborated with Roy Clark, a musician most closely associated with country (he was one of the stars of Hee Haw), but a guitar virtuoso who could and did play anything, on an album of Hank Williams songs. "Jambalaya" is Williams' reworking of an old Cajun melody, "Grand Texas." The original was a sad love song; in Williams's hands it became a celebration of Louisiana Cajun life. Jackson gives it some blues, and gives it some good times.

Frank Shea and Jimmy Lewis, from King Curtis'

s band, rounded out the quintet for this session.

The various sessions which reunited Jackson, McDuff and Jennings, from late 1959 through this one at the end of 1961, all produced by Esmond Edwards, were collected on two LPs, neither of which was released right away. The first, Together Again, came out in 1965. The second, Together Again, Again, which included all four of these cuts, was a 1966 release. Both album covers tout Jackson and McDuff, not Jennings, coming together again, and again.

"Jambalaya" was released as a 45 RPM single with "Thunderbird," from a 1962 Jackson album. "Without a Song" and "Backtrack" came out as Tru-Sound 45. Since there was no Tru-Sound in 1966, the time of the album release, I would guess that both of these singles came out much earlier.

Listening to Prestige 341a: Willis Jackson

Going back in time, to pick up a session I had not been able to find at the time: Willis Jackson with his original partners, Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings.

Conguero Buck Clarke makes an interesting addition to this version of the Jackson group. Clarke, born and raised in Washington, DC, is not a percussionist in the Latin tradition--perhaps more Afrocentric. He contributes strongly to the group's sound, particularly on the showpiece of the session, the ten-and-a-half-minute "Keep on a-Blowin'." Jackson, of course, made his reputation as a hard-blowing rhythm and

blues tenor man, with titles like "Blow, Jackson, Blow." The classic honking tenor instrumentals of rhythm and blues were cut for the 78 and later 45 RPM jukebox market, and their intensity was tailored to three minutes and generally one soloist. "Keep on a-Blowin'" is very different from that. There's enough blowin' by the Gator, with some solid fills and call-and-response by McDuff, to make for a very satisfactory two-sided 45, and in fact Prestige did release one. But there's more, and appropriately so, with two sidemen as good as McDuff and Jennings. In fact, the over ten-minute cut is more or less divided into thirds, with Jennings soloing in the middle and McDuff at the end. I don't know how the tune was edited for the 45 RPM release, but they certainly could have done it the way it was done on Bill Doggett's classic two-sided "Honky Tonk": tenor sax solo on one side and guitar on the other.

Rudy Van Gelder keeps Buck Clarke's conga beat prominent throughout the number, and it's a welcome addition. Even with Ray Barretto's work on a number of recordings for Prestige and other labels, hand-propelled drums were still a rarity in jazz, and were rarely thought of in any context other than Latin music, which is why Buck Clarke didn't get a lot of dates.

A fact acknowledged by Clarke in a 1988 interview, looking back on his career. He had fallen in love with the congas early, and had never been tempted to switch to a more popular instrument.

The interview, by James Graves, and now posted on YouTube, gives another fascinating look into a less-known life in the jazz business. Clarke, born and raised in Washington, DC, went to work as a young teenager for a man who owned a sign company, and was Duke Ellington's cousin. His boss used to play jazz records for him -- the Duke, of course. and Oscar Peterson. "Then Dizzy Gillespie, and I was hooked."

The hook was sunk in deeper when his boss played him records of Gillespie with Chano Pozo:

 and knew I wanted to play percussion. Something spiritual happened to me, as though someone had said to me “this is what you will do.” It was tough, because there was little or no interest in bongos or congas for jazz at that time [the late 1940s].

Clarke started out playing the black vaudeville circuit, known at the time as "jig shows," then started to get gigs around the DC area with dance bands who wanted to include a few rhumbas -- this was before the mambo and cha-cha craze. On one of those dance gigs, with a band called Wesley Anderson and his Washingtonians (not Duke Ellington's Washingtonians), he found that the band was to be augmented by a guest star:

I was excited to be asked because they had some great musicians in that band, including Eddie Jones who had played for several years with Count Basie. But I was really excited when I found out who else had been hired for that one gig—Charlie Parker.

Bird and I hit it off right away. There were even moments on the stage when it was no one but me and him playing. It didn’t get recorded, but it’s recorded in my head, and it will be until I leave this world. 

I never saw Bird again, but in my mind I could hear him telling me, OK, kid go for it. You got it, now go for it. So I hit the road. 

Clarke hit the road, playing his congas and bongos, playing everywhere someone would let him, still resisting the temptation to switch instruments:

And still I had people asking me, “When are you going to play a real instrument? You want to play jazz, you need to pick up a saxophone or something.” But for me, playing percussion was like touching the earth.

A highlight of those days included a gig with Arnett Cobb when he was 19 or 20, where he says he really learned how to play with a band, and finally arriving in New York, where he got a chance to play with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

Clarke made an album for the tiny Offbeat label in 1960, and two more for Argo in 1961 and 1963, but as far as getting called by name jazz musicians went, the Willis Jackson gig was pretty much of a one-off. But when a new decade rolled around, and percussion became the staple of jazz music that Clarke had always predicted it would, things changed, He recorded in the 1970s with Les McCann, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Nina Simone, the Isley Brothers, John Mayall and others.

The session, produced by Esmond Edwards, ended up all over the place, which is probably one reason that it didn't create much of a calling card for Clarke. "Sportin'" (by Jackson and Jennings) and "Where Are You?" went to Cookin' Sherry. "Keep on a-Blowin'" (Jackson and McDuff) went on Cool "Gator." "This Nearly Was Mine" was on Blue Gator. "It Might as Well Be Spring" and "This'll Get to Ya" were on  Together Again!, which had put together leftover tracks from various sessions, and was released in 1965, after  Jackson, Jennings and McDuff had gone their separate ways. "Dancing on the Ceiling" was held off until 1966 and Together Again, Again!

"Keep on a-Blowin'" was one two-sided single, and "This'll Get to Ya" was the other.

Listening to Prestige 449: Willis Jackson

It's later for the Gator, as Willis Jackson finds himself in a romantic, sentimental mood for this outing,  He's working in a quartet setting, giving him space to express this side of himself, and he does it expertly and with feeling.

His pensive mood apparently extended to meditation on religious matters, because he included two spirituals with the set, "Motherless Child" and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." a later compilation of these and some other ballads, Gentle Gator, omits the spirituals. And gentle though the mood may have been, it was apparently lusty enough that selection, "Nancy (With the Laughing Face"), the tribute to Frank Sinatra's first wife written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Phil Silvers, is also include on a Prestige compilation album, Lusty Moods, the lust apparently inspired by the mention of a woman's name, since that's the common thread in all the song titles. And one of the selections,  was perhaps not moody enough, because it was saved for a Prestige LP, Really Groovin'.

Mickey Roker was raised in Philadelphia, where he was mentored by Philly Joe Jones and another Philly drummer. As he related it to Ethan Iverson in a 2011 interview:

we used to have jam sessions right here in this house [the family home in Philadelphia, where he still lived in 2011].  With a piano over there.  My uncle bought a piano.  The drums would be set up right here and the bass would be over there.  Every Sunday we would have jam sessions with cats like McCoy, Kenny Barron, Arthur Harper, Reggie Workman.  An alto player named “C” Sharpe. Odean Pope used to come. Philadelphia cats, you know.  The drummer that inspired me the most was Eddie Campbell.  Boy, that cat could play, man.  He could take an idea and just wring it out. And he would be smiling all of the time.

Roker's first New York recording was with Gigi Gryce for Prestige, three in all. He was at the

beginning of a career that would find him one of the most sought-after drummers on the scene, recording most frequently for Blue Note.

Ethan Edwards produced. The Moodsville album was called In My Solitude.

Listening to Prestige 430: Willis Jackson

Willis Jackson came to Prestige in 1959 with his longtime bandmates Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings. They had been playing the genre of jazz often dismissed as rhythm and blues, but with the cachet of the Prestige label, their music was now called mainstream jazz, and soon, soul jazz.  By 1961, McDuff had gone out on his own, and was on his way to becoming one of the biggest stars on the Prestige label, forming a one-two organ punch with Shirley Scott. Bill Jennings would continue to play off and on with Jackson, creating a guitar sound that would deeply influence a future generation of guitarists, but would never win him stardom in his own career.

This was Jackson's first session with neither of his old cohorts, but he's still the same Gator, playing pretty for the people, and absorbing some lessons from his rhythm and blues years, when you played tunes that could fit on a 78, later 45, RPM record, and would get play on jukeboxes. The tunes could be long enough to fit on both sides of 45, like Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk" or Cozy Cole's "Topsy," but mostly they weighed in at under three and a half minutes. He does have a couple of six-minute songs here (by the album standards of the day, still short), but most of the cuts come in around four minutes. The other lesson was pay attention to tunes and hooks. Give people something to respond to quickly.

These aren't the only criteria for making good music. In the age of Ornette Coleman, they might even have seemed a little quaint. But Jackson used them wisely and skillfully, and if he didn't make Down Beat's polls, nor is he remembered widely by today's jazz aficionados (did not make ranker.com's list of 200 greatest saxophonists of all time; by contrast, Jack McDuff  is #16 on their organist list), he nevertheless made music that is beautiful, soulful, earthy, danceable, and well worth your nickel in the jukebox.

This session featured Jimmy Neeley on piano. Neeley, whose name was also spelled Neely from time to time, had visited Englewood Cliffs before at Prestige's behest: the previous December, he had led a

trio in a session that was released on Prestige's short-lived budget label Tru-Sound. And he might have had a longer history with the label; he worked with blues singer H-Bomb Ferguson, who recorded for Prestige in the early days, but as with a lot of vocalist recordings, the session musicians weren't noted. He played with rhythm and blues/jazz artists Mickey Baker and Red Prysock, and wit Roy Eldridge.

Gus Johnson had recorded for Prestige with Coleman Hawkins, Lem Winchester, Taft Jordan and Willie Dixon. Wendell Marshall was one of their most often-used bassists of the era, and Juan Amalbert was the leader of the Latin Jazz Quintet.

Benny Golson's "I Remember Clifford" had already become a standard since its first appearance on record, performed by Donald Byrd and Gigi Gryce. Jackson treats it with the love you'd appropriately give to a classic. He does the same with "Careless Love," here credited to W. C. Handy, although it's an old folk blues which predates Handy. He has a few of his own tunes, a couple from other sources. "Again," by Lionel Newman, was introduced by Ida Lupino in the film noir cult favorite, Road House. "Girl of My Dreams" was the only hit for Charles "Sunny" Clapp, who led a territorial band, mostly in Texas, in the 1930s. And I think my favorite tunes on the album are the two composed by Johnny Griffin: "Oatmeal" and "Sweet Peter Charleston," featuring some hot blowing by the Gator, and some tasty work by Amalbert and Neeley.

The album was Really Groovin', which also featured one track from a different session and with a different band. "Careless Love" and the Jackson composition "He Said, She Said, I Said" (two more favorites) were the 45 pm single. One tune from session, "Estrellita," was held back for a later Moodsville album, In My Solitude. Esmond Edwards produced.

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.

Volume 4 is in preparation now!

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

Listening to Prestige 325: Willis Jackson

"On the Sunny Side of the Street" begins at about 14:20, followed by "Blue Strollin'."

Willis Jackson, Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings are still together, bringing a world of experience to their partnership before ever arriving at Prestige. This means two things, both of them good. First, they're comfortable and relaxed and intuitive with each other. Second, they know each other well enough to feel good about taking chances and trying something new.

Three things, actually, all of them good. They've been playing for the people for a long time. So to Jackson, McDuff and Jennings, trying something new doesn't mean what it means to Coleman or Coltrane. It means finding new little surprises to wake up an audience. It means you'll be booed for a week if the audience knows what to expect from you, and you'll be held over for another week if you give them a little of the unexpected, too.

How about if you're at a dance hall, and the Gator announces that "Now we're gonna play an old favorite -- 'Sunny Side of the Street,' and your feet start tapping in anticipation, because you can feel the tempo already? And you're getting set to sing along: "Grab your coat and get your hat...Leave your worries on the doorstep..."

And then Jack McDuff starts that odd organ riff, teasing the melody and bumpety bumping away from it, and you're scratching your head for about 20 seconds before the Gator comes in with the melody, and now you're tapping your toes and saying, "Hey, that was some cool shit brother Jack put down."

This isn't music appreciation postgraduate level, it's Music Appreciation 101, and that's what makes a lot of folks happy.

This session was broken up and sold for parts. "Sunny Side of the Street" "Blue Strollin'" went to Cool "Gator," released in 1960, and rereleased as Keep on a-Blowin'. "East Breeze" was on Blue Gator, a later 1960 release.  "When I Fall in Love" was held off for Cookin' Sherry, a 1961 release. "Glad a See Ya" came out in 1965, after McDuff had moved on to lead his own group, on an album entitled Willis Jackson and Jack McDuff--Together Again! and the medley saw daylight the following year on Together Again, Again! Esmond Edwards produced this session and the others that were mixed and matched on all those albums.

"On the Sunny Side of the Street" was the flip side of a 45 that featured "Come Back to Sorrento."