Listening to Prestige 574: Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis

LISTEN TO ONE: The Way You Look Tonight

 Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's partnership with Shirley Scott was a key milestone in the development of the tenor sax/organ sound that came to play such a dominant role in 1960s jazz. Scott moved on to another partnership, this one involving marriage, with Stanley Turrentine.

Davis would mostly move in other directions, but he did return to the organ combo mode for this lengthy session, picking up a trio that had worked together extensively in the past. Don Patterson, Paul Weeden and Billy James had even made a record together in Chicago, for Cadet. Patterson and James would go on working together throughout the decade, as Patterson became one of Prestige's most prolific recording artists.

Paul Weeden was an Indianapolis native who was friends with another young homeboy, Wes Montgomery, and together they developed the thumb-plucking style of jazz guitar that Montgomery was to take to such heights. Moving on from Indiana to Philadelphia and New York, he joined up with Patterson and James, and the three of them, in addition to playing as a trio, started working with horn players. They are on the Sonny Stitt/Gene Ammons Verve album, Boss Tenors in Orbit, and also worked with Stitt on albums for Roost and Riverside's Jazzland subsidiary.  

Weeden would choose the expatriate route, moving first to Sweden, where he taught at the University of Stockholm, and then to Norway, where he would spend the rest of his life, recording over 20 albums. He did spend some time with the Count Basie orchestra, stepping in when Freddie Green died in 1988.

The group had started out as the Paul Weeden Trio, but when he left it became Don Patterson's group,

with Billy James his partner on drums, and they would record 16 albums for Prestige during the 1960s, featuring such horn players as Booker Ervin, David "Fathead" Newman, Blue Mitchell and Sonny Stitt. Pat Martino became a frequent collaborator on guitar, and Grant Green worked with them later in the decade. They also -- with Martino -- made Prestige albums with Sonny Stitt and Eric Kloss.

Patterson, Weeden and James certainly knew how to play together, and they knew how to play with a saxophone. Davis knew how to play with this lineup, and he knew how to jam. And as Paul Weeden's son Ronald told an interviewer, about his father's recordings:

The greatest ones in his opinion he ever played in were the jam sessions where the artist would just come in and play. They may have done a gig all night long and they would come in play into the wee hours of the morning. 

That was Prestige. And that was this group of musicians. The tunes were almost all familiar standards, and once they found a groove for a tune, they could work it. And once they found a groove for a session, they could go all day and all night--which they very nearly did, recording 13 tunes -- 14 if you count an early-in-the-session unissued version of "Beano," discarded after they did a presumably more satisfying version of the Davis original later on.

The grooves were set by James and veteran bassist George Duvivier. Often, organ combos don't bother with a bassist. Rhoda Scott recalled that the leader of the first group she played in as a teenager was glad to get her an organ, rather than a piano, because the organ could carry the bass part and he didn't need to pay another musician. But in this case, Duvivier is an invaluable asset.

He and James drive the group, and they drive 'em hard. There's no wistful romanticism in a tune like "I Only Have Eyes for You" or "The Way You Look Tonight," one of my favorite wistful romantic tunes, but in this case I'm happy to let these guys rock out, and ride along with them. 

There's not much subtlety here, but you wouldn't want it. There's great virtuosity, and above all, there's great communication. The solos all find new and satisfying avenues of inventiveness and expressiveness, without ever losing that drive and coherence.

Ozzie Cadena produced, and my guess is that his main job was to say "Don't stop...keep going...let's do one more!" until they had enough for two albums. The first was called I Only Have Eyes for You, and was credited to Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis with the Paul Weeden Trio. The second, Trackin' (Prestige continued to love those gerunds with the "g" cut off for titles), was Davis alone.

"I Only Have Eyes for You" had been a huge pop hit for the Flamingoes in a doo-wop version that quickly became the definitive version of the song, and Davis's group doesn't try to compete, swinging it hard instead, but that was reason enough to make it the first 45 RPM release from the session, along with "Sweet and Lovely." it was followed by "Robbins Nest" / "A Foggy Day," and then "Beano," Parts 1 and 2.