Listening to Prestige 314: Tiny Grimes

Prestige follows up its Swingville debut with another Swingville set, this one led by Tiny Grimes, another traditional player, for an album that's steeped in the blues--and as Grimes comments in the liner notes, "If a man can't play the blues he won't last very long."
Everyone here could play the blues. Jerome Richardson, who played with Lionel Hampton and Earl Hines, certainly could.  He was fast becoming Prestige's go-to guy in 1958-59. He appeared with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Gene Ammons, the Prestige Blues Swingers led by Art Farmer, the Prestige All Stars with Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley and Kenny Burrell, and his own group with Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Cleveland.

The songs are a mixture of familiar folk songs, not always a first stop market for jazz musicians, "Ain't Misbehavin'," so familiar and beloved a melody that it could almost be a folk song and originals by Grimes and Doretta Crawley, about whom I can find no biographical information and no other writing credits, so I'm guessing a romantic liaison of some sort. Whether Crawley helped a lot, I don't know, but she certainly didn't hurt. These are tunes that roll up the blues and lay them flat out. “Down With It” and “Home Sick” are slow blues, redolent of the juke joint,  vehicles for Grimes’s bent notes and unreconstructed feeling. Grimes is really the center here, but Richardson weighs in with a flute solo on “Down With It” that makes as good a case for the flute as a blues instrument as you’re likely to here, then comes back with the tenor sax for the final statement of the theme. “Home Sick” gives Ray Bryant some great solo space and duet space with Grimes. “Durn Tootin’” kicks up the tempo and puts Richardson in the driver’s seat, which changes a lot of things. It gives Tiny a different direction, so that without giving away any blues cred, he stretches out his jazz chops a lot. They're one-shot tunes, just for this album, so limited royalties for Ms. Crawley, but they sound good.

Tiny in Swingville was the second Swingville release. "Annle Laurie" and "Durn Tootin'" were put out as a 45, and got a nice heads up from Billboard:

Annie Laurie: Tiny Grimes is featured on guitar on this swinging version of the familiar folk tune. Good side for jazz boxes. Durn Tootin: Jerome Richardson and Ray Bryant join Grimes on this happy riff effort that should appeal to modern jazz buffs.

And that hits it pretty well. Swingville's marketing, and the presence of Tiny Grimes, was a signal to the swing fans and the classic rhythm and blues fans that there was something here for them, and yet Prestige was not losing sight of its modern jazz soul.

Esmond Edwards produced.