Listening to Prestige 615: Shirley Scott and Kenny Burrell

LISTEN TO ONE: Call it Stormy Monday

Prestige puts two of its most creative talents of the 1960s together, and the results are as beautiful, as creative, and as unique as you might have predicted. The two of them challenge each other, complement each other. They put together a good selection of tunes, and they make music that's a joy to listen to. They're joined by bassist Eddie Khan, heard once before on Prestige with Ronnie Mathews and Freddie Hubbard, and drummer Otis "Candy" Finch, borrowed by Scott from husband Stanley Turrentine's group. Finch, from Detroit, was the son of Otis Finch Sr., tenor saxophone player with John Lee Hooker.

"Trav'lin Light" was written by Jimmy Mundy and Trummy Young, and brought by Young to a 1942 session Paul Whiteman was doing for the newly formed Capitol Records. Young had also brought along his then girlfriend, Billie Holiday, and not wanting to miss an opportunity, Capitol's co-founder Johnny Mercer took Young's tune, wrote a lyric to it, and put Holiday in front of a microphone with the new song. She was under contract to Columbia, so she was "Lady Day" for the recording. 

"Solar" is the famous Miles Davis composition, now a jazz standard, over 200 versions of it recorded, the first few bars of the melody engraved on Miles' tombstone...and almost certainly written by Chuck Wayne, not Miles. Be that as it may, it's a great romp for jazz musicians, Burrell playing it mainstream and wholly satisfying, Scott using the tune for one of her excursions to test the possibilities of the Hammond. They bring it off together, with some nice soloing by Eddie Khan.

"Nice 'n Easy" was a recent hit, written by Hollywood songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman for Frank Sinatra, and an instant standard, equally popular with crooners, swingsters, and jazz groups (Willis Jackson had brought the tune out to Englewood Cliffs just a month before Scott and Burrell). It's a catchy tune, and they catch hold of something, and swing it to life.

T-Bone Walker's "They Call it Stormy Monday" is a blues you can sink your teeth into. Blues singers love it, but jazz musicians have largely left it alone. Before Scott and Burrell, only Woody Herman had recorded it. Burrell actually had done it on record before, with Junior Mance, but that was backing up a blues singer, Billie Poole. Very few instrumental jazz renditions of it have been done since, and if Scott and Burrell (and Eddie Khan) are any guide, this is a mistake. This is the highlight of the album, a terrific blues--not soul jazz, the real blues.

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" has become a controversial song in recent years, with many decrying its lyric, but it's hard to find anything wrong with the sassy, tuneful Frank Loesser melody, and whatever you may think of the various male-female vocal duets, there's nothing at all wrong with the Scott-Burrell duet. It's delicious.

And speaking of songs that aren't normally done by jazz groups. this is probably the only jazz rendition you'll ever hear of the traditional Irish "Kerry Dance." It, too, is a delight, with some fancy stick work by "Candy" Finch.

What would you have released as your 45 RPM single? I think I would have gone with "Stormy Monday" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside," but Bob Weinstock and the marketing boys at Prestige chose "Travelin' Light" and "Kerry Dance." I can't complain. Anything from this album that I ever saw on a jukebox would get my nickel. Travelin' Light also became the album's title. Ozzie Cadena produced.