Listening to Prestige 607: Booker Ervin

LISTEN TO ONE: Grant's Stand

 Before free jazz became the universally agreed upon name for the music that was being pioneered in the early 1960s by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and others, it had other names. Arthur Taylor, in his book Notes and Tones, a collection of interviews with fellow musicians conducted between 1968 and 1972, frequently discusses "freedom music." Musicians don't always get to decide what their albums are going to be called, but it's likely that Booker Ervin had some input into The Freedom Book the title for this one, as he edges from bop toward freedom music, paying his tuition to both schools, and establishing himself as one of the distinctive voices of this period.

The quartet Ervin assembled for this session was to stay with him throughout his career with Prestige, and the three sidemen would work as a trio under Jaki Byard's leadership on a series of Prestige albums. They were the right group for where Ervin was going, eclectic musicians who could play in any style, even styles that hadn't been invented yet, and that Ervin was maybe making up as he went along.

Jaki Byard was as wide-ranging a talent as you're likely to find, from working with Eric Dolphy to playing the music of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Ervin was mostly unfamiliar with Byard's work before hiring him for this session on the strong recommendation of producer Don Schlitten. Schlitten was right, as their continued association would prove.

Richard Davis's credentials range from Dolphy (the great Dolphy-Booker Little Quintet) to Frank Sinatra to Van Morrison (he was on Morrison's groundbreaking Astral Weeks album). New on the New York scene after several years on the road with Sarah Vaughan, he had been making his mark all over town when tabbed for this gig.

Alan Dawson made  his Prestige debut back in 1953 when, as a member of Lionel Hampton's European touring band, he joined Quincy Jones for a session in Sweden. An educator of note (Tony Williams was a student), he was teaching at Berklee in Boston when Ervin called him for this session, explaining:

Yeah, Alan's a bitch...I played with Alan in Boston about ten years ago and it was one of the greatest experiences I've had in music...with Alan you can forget about the time, go beyond it. He's got drive but he also knows how to build a climax, then take it down to a different level where you can get yourself together and then build it back up again. Man, with Alan you can play forever!

He followed his stint with Ervin by replacing Joe Morello in the Dave Brubeck quartet, where almost certainly did not duplicate his stick work with the Booker Ervin quartet.

It's no accident that a musician of Ervin's gifts, and Ervin's vision, would put together a group this gifted, and it's a blessing that he was able to keep them together. This is an amazing album, that gets better every time you listen to it. I'm hard-pressed to pick a "Listen to One." The uptempo numbers, "A Lunar Tune," "Grant's Stand" and "Al's In," push the freedom envelope a little more. The ballads. especially "A Day to Mourn" have some fine ensemble playing and some remarkable individual virtuosity. You should really listen to the whole album. If the freedom sound sort of passed you by, and you think you ought to have given it more of a shot, but it was just too far out for you, you'll love this album. If you're a free jazz devotee, you'll love this album. Go out and buy it on vinyl.

Randy Weston wrote "Cry Me Not." All the others on the album are Ervin's compositions. They also recorded the standard, "Stella by Starlight," but that was held back, and appeared on a 1966 album. Groovin' High, which was the extras from all his previous sessions.