Listening to Prestige 260: Ray Draper - John Coltrane

Bob Weinstock must have had a lot of confidence in his barely 17-year-old prodigy Ray Draper, giving him John Coltrane as a bandmate. It's tough enough playing bebop on a tuba, without being asked to play it off against one of the most advanced improvisers of the era. And to up the stakes a little more, either Weinstock or Draper decided not to go with their tried and true reliables in the rhythm section. Each of them had played on only one other Prestige session. Gil Coggins had played on a Jackie McLean session in August.  Spanky DeBrest had appeared on Draper's debut as leader, though he was already an established figure with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Larry Ritchie had also worked with Draper, on the July 12 Jackie McLean session.

All of this works. Coggins is a jagged, percussive piano player, and sets the tone that this is going to be a different kind of session. Draper and Coltrane work well together in the ensemble passages. Draper proves that he's a first rate composer on his originals, particularly "Clifford's Kappa," and he shines as a soloist.

And that's saying a lot, considering what he was up against. Everything from this session is good, better than good. But Coltrane was on fire. When he solos, everything else melts away. I've been following Coltrane's progression here, from the Miles sessions through the wide-ranging array of sideman gigs that Weinstock used him for, through his sessions as leader, looking for clues as to what he would burst forth into come the 1960s, and not really finding them. In each of his Prestige sessions, including this one, he is right there in the present moment, making the music he's brought in to make. And making all the right choices. And listening to his recording sessions in chronological order, all I can say is that he keeps getting better and better.

His solos here virtually stop time and space, and exist in their own dimension. But that doesn't mean he's ignoring what's around him. He's working with Draper and Coggins, building on what they're doing, and they're doing some very, very good stuff.

In spite of all that, it's hard to know what to do with a tuba player, and Weinstock was not going to do more. This is Draper's last session for Prestige, and it was released on New Jazz, which generally meant it was not going to get the promotional push that went behind a Prestige release. Draper would record only sporadically after that, succumbing to heroin addiction and drug-related prison time. He died in 1982, meeting an ironically grisly end for a musical prodigy: he was shot and killed by a hold-up gang led by a 13-year-old.

The original New Jazz release was called The Ray Draper Quintet featuring John Coltrane. A much later Prestige reissue was title The John Coltrane/Ray Draper Quintet.



Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 245: Jackie McLean

This is around the time when Bob Weinstock stops being the hands-on guy in the studio (although his idea of hands-on was mostly hands off), and starts turning some sessions over to other producers. He's had Teddy Charles produce a few, but those were really Teddy Charles projects.

Here he gives over some of his regulars to a new guy, Don Schlitten. And this is, in fact, a session that makes up part of an album begun back in February, with Weinstock at the helm. Schlitten was a young guy -- at 24, four years younger than Weinstock, and at the beginning of a long career in jazz. Like Weinstock, he had started his own label at a young age,

but perhaps had not had the business acumen, or perhaps just hadn't found his focus yet. His label, Signal, which he formed with Ira Gitler, did some significant work, recording Duke Jordan, Gigi Gryce, Red Rodney, Cecil Payne, and a live tribute to Charlie Parker from the Five Spot. They also put out an interesting series called Jazz Laboratory, which was sort of similar to Music Minus One. It featured quartets led by pianists like Duke Jordan and Hall Overton, with one horn player. On the reverse side of the album, the horn player dropped out, and the remaining trio did the same songs.

After a couple of years, Schlitten sold the label to Savoy, and went into independent production. He would go on to form other labels, and make a major contribution to jazz.

He brings a few faces to this session in the rhythm section. Jon Mayer didn't make much of a name for himself in the 1950s (and the name he did make was not entirely his own, if this session is an indication), but that would  change several decades later. He made one other album (with Coltrane), played on gigs with Ray Draper (who may have recommended him here, as he did earlier with Webster Young), Kenny  Dorham, Tony Scott and others, and in the 60s he performed with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band, and accompanied Dionne Warwick, Sarah Vaughan and the Manhattan Transfer. Then he dropped out of sight until the 1990s, when he made a series of highly regarded albums, including a couple with Mark Feldman's Reservoir Records, out of Kingston, NY. He is still active.

Bill Salter is probably best known for his years as bass player and musical director for Miriam Makeba, but he picked an odd route into jazz--his first professional job was with Pete Seeger. Salter sort of passed through jazz. It was only part of what he did. His folk music credentials included Harry Belafonte and John Prine as well as Seeger. He was in the pit for Broadway shows. He wrote hit songs for Shirley Bassey, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, Grover Washington, Jr. and Rod Stewart.  But as he passed through, he left a mark: recordings with Sabu, Herbie Mann,Yusef Lateef, David "Fathead" Newman, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He currently plays traditional black vaudeville music with his own group, the Ebony Hillbillies.

Like Gil Melle and Larry Rivers, Larry Ritchie was torn between painting and music, and over time he drifted more into painting. He would be back in Hackensack one more time in 1957, recording with Ray Draper and John Coltrane.

Draper and Webster Young make up the rest of the sextet part of the session, and Draper contributed one tune, the oddly named  "Disciples Love Affair." McLean pairs down to a quartet for the final number of the day. "Not So Strange Blues" is sort of a companion piece to "Strange Blues," from the earlier session, and it may not be strange, but it sure is the blues.

If Schlitten was looking for instant recognition from his first Prestige session, he was doomed to disappointment. Strange Blues, which included these three tracks, would not be released for another ten years. But Weinstock was satisfied enough to hand him more assignments. And this whole McLean project was pretty weird. The long February session, which included "Strange Blues," would be released in dribs and drabs on New Jazz starting in 1959.