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 513: Eddie Kirkland

LISTEN TO ONE: Train Done Gone

Two items of note, here. First, Eddie Kirkland himself, one of the great blues performers of his generation. Although outgunned in reputation by Chess Records's stable of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Bo Diddley and all, he was outgunned by no one when it came to delivering hard driving blues. Second, a rare, probably unique, opportunity to hear King Curtis and Oliver Nelson playing together.

That second one might be a bit of a letdown. King Curtis's band was brought in to back up Kirkland, and Nelson...? Perhaps he had stopped by the studio in Englewood Cliffs for some other reason, and decided it

would be fun to sit in, and a bit of something different. This was, after all, the blues and the concrete truth. Or perhaps there was a personal connection--Nelson would sit in again with the Curtis band on Kirkland's second Prestige session, the following year.

Neither Nelson nor Curtis solos, but the ensemble gives a fullness to what is first and foremost a Kirkland session, with the blues man's forceful and commanding voice, guitar and harmonica. It's the blues man, and it's the blues, man. Love gone wrong dominates the session thematically, and there's no arguing with that as a solid basis for the blues.

This was Kirkland's first album, and the only one on which the tag "Blues Man" was added to his name. If he was to be known by a nickname, it was more often "Gypsy of the Blues," because of his nonstop touring schedule. He did release one single--his first--as "Little Eddie Kirkland," on the West Coast RPM label, and he recorded a couple of sides in 1963 as Eddie Kirk. Those were for Volt Records, one half of the legendary soul labels Stax-Volt, during the time when he was bandleader for Volt's superstar performer, Otis Redding.

Kirkland was born in Jamaica but raised in Alabama. He toured with a medicine show in his teens, then joined the army, where a fight with a racist officer brought him a dishonorable discharge. From there he made his way to Detroit, where his mother was then living, and his guitar skills brought him to the attention of John Lee Hooker, with whom he toured from 1949 to 1962. From then on, following the gig with Otis Redding, he continued as a solo act, although he did also work with other artists, including  Little Richard, Ben E. King, Ruth Brown and Little Johnnie Taylor. He died in 2011 in an automobile accident.

It's the Blues Man! was released on Tru-Sound, and it has come to be regarded by many blues enthusiasts as Kirkland's best work. One track from the session "Man of Stone," was covered by the British blues band John Mayall's Bluesbreakers,. Tru-Sound also released "Train Done Gone" and "Something's Gone Wrong in My Life" on 45 RPM, while "Chill Me Baby" was matched with "Have Mercy on Me," from Kirkland's second Prestige session, in 1962. the 45 was released in 1964 on the Prestige label, Tru-Sound being no more by that time.

"Train Done Gone" had a parallel life, being also released on 45 by the tiny Detroit blues and soul label, Lu Pine, with "I Tried" on the flip side. Lu Pine did a lot of good stuff, but they're probably best remembered by music historians for "Tears of Sorrow" / "Pretty Baby," by the Primettes. The record flopped, but another Detroit music entrepreneur, Berry Gordy, liked the group's sound, signed them to his own label, and changed their name to the Supremes.

Music writer Elijah Wald once said of him, "For pure energy and emotion, he may be the greatest blues artist alive."