BLP 1523

 Kenny Burrell - Introducing

Released - July 1956

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 29, 1956
Tommy Flanagan, piano; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Paul Chambers, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums; Candido, congas #2,3.

1. tk.2 Fugue 'N' Blues
2. tk.3 Takeela
3. tk.6 Delilah

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 30, 1956
Tommy Flanagan, piano #1-3; Kenny Burrell, guitar #1-3; Paul Chambers, bass #1-3; Kenny Clarke, drums; Candido, congas #1,2,4.

1. tk.11 Blues For Skeeter
2. tk.13 This Time The Dream's On Me
3. tk.16 Weaver Of Dreams
4. tk.17 Rhythmorama

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
This Time the Dream's on Me	Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer	30/05/1956
Fugue 'n' Blues	Kenny Burrell	29/05/1956
Takeela	Kenny Burrell	29/05/1956
Side Two
Weaver of Dreams	Elliott, Young	30/05/1956
Delilah	Victor Young	29/05/1956
Rhythmorama	Kenny Clarke	30/05/1956
Blues for Skeeter	Kenny Burrell	29/05/1956

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	REID K. MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	LEONARD FEATHER

Liner Notes

IN the course of contemplating the achievements of Thad Jones and his group on a recent Blue Note release (BLP 1513, Detroit-New York Junction), it was this writer’s pleasure to observe that Detroit and its environs seemed to be providing the jazz cosmos with more than its share of major-league talent. One of the sidemen on that session, Kenny Burrell, offered incontrovertible evidence that his talent was of a caliber to justify the initiation of a new session built around him.

Kenneth Earl Burrell was born in Detroit on July 31, 1931. Anyone deputed to take care of cleaning up the Burrell household was apt to find plenty of odd plectrums lying around, since Kenny and two brothers were all devoted to the guitar. Billy, the oldest brother, who later betrayed the family honor by becoming a bassist, worked with the Willie Anderson trio and the Don Redman band.

Except for eighteen months of classical guitar tuition in 1952-3, Kenny had no formal study of the instrument. The easiest way to learn and observe was a sit in on jobs with brother Billy. Before long, at the age of seventeen, he had a job of his own, playing with the Candy Johnson sextet. After playing in two other local combos, (Count Belcher, 1949 and Tommy Barnett, 1950), Kenny started working mainly with his own group. He first rubbed shoulders with the big timers when Dizzy Gillespie breezed into town and used him on the gig in April, 1951. (“That was quite an experience: Diz had Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Percy Heath, Kansas Fields and me. That was when I mode my record debut, when he made a session in Detroit, including Birks Works and Tin Tin Deo.”)

During the next four years, Kenny built up a big reputation, simultaneously building up his combo from trio to quartet to quintet size. Then, in March, 1955. he was given an unexpected opportunity to see something of the world outside Detroit when Herb Ellis was taken suddenly ill and Oscar Peterson sent for Kenny to replace him for a few weeks in the Peterson trio. Soon after that, armed with a brand new Bachelor of Music degree from Detroit’s Wayne University. Kenny moved to Now York and was heard at the Bohemia and similar hip spots with his own and other combos. In the summer of 1956 he played a series of dates with the Hamp Hawes combo.

Kenny, who usually sings on most jobs and plans later to record vocally, says that his ambitions are to compose, to continue playing jazz guitar and to become a college teacher of music. He names three favorites on his instrument: Charlie Christian, the tragically short-lived father of modern jazz guitar; the late Django Reinhardt, the Belgian plectrist wizard; and Oscar Moore, award-winning member of the King Cole Trio of the mid-1940s. As his favorite composers and arrangers, Kenny selects Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

For his first record session as a leador, Kenny surrounded himself with a sensational rhythm team. Tommy Flanagan, the pianist, an old friend from Detroit, has been heard around New York lately with Oscar Pettiford and others. Bassist Paul Chambers, an unquestioned choice as the greatest musician of the year on his instrument, is a twenty-year-old Detroiter heard ¡n recent months with the Miles Davis combo. In the percussion department, Kenny Clarke of course is familiar to all Blue Note fans and Candido, king of the bongo and conga drums, has been called the logical successor to the late and memorable Chano Pozo.

The first side opens with This Time the Dream’s on Me. Kenny offers a bare outline of the familiar Harold Arlen melody, with Candido taking over on the bridge, before the pattern evolves into a series of fast-tempo improvisations. Kenny’s stylistic qualities soon become apparent: his choice of notes is as modern as his phrasing, but his tone is rich, and fuller than that of many modern jazz guitarists who prefer a dead, flat sound. This live sound helps to reinforce the evidence that his music comes from the heart, not just from a socket in the wall. Flanagan has two smooth choruses, after which Candido and Clarke have a series of four-bar and eight-bar alternations before the theme returns.

Fugue ‘N Blues opens with Paul Chambers’ bass, to which the piano and guitar are added in succeeding choruses for contrapuntal effect. In the ensuing lengthy series of improvisations, which show evidence of use at an extensive road map, the musicians modulate about a dozen tines — mostly, I was surprised to note, in sharp keys. One sure way to ovoid monotony in a jazz performance, particularly on a short and simple theme like the 12-bar blues, is to change keys, and it certainly can be said that Messrs. Burrell and company scarcely missed an opportunity for a change on this session.

Candido returns to the spotlight with some 16-beat bongo rhythms to introduce the theme of Takeela, which allegedly was not named after a bottle or even a glass of tequila, but after a girl. Weaver of Dreams engages the attractive 1951 song in a melodic excursion that shows Kenny’s aptitude for chord style as well as far single-note melodic interpretation; notice, too, the effectively gentle touch and phrasing of Tommy Flanagan's piano interlude.

Delilah, a most groovy performance, a medium-paced rendition of the Victor Young movie theme from Samson and Delilah, with Candido prominently underlining the lady’s comely features.

Rhythmorama, which gave Kenny, Tommy and Paul time to relax and smoke a cigarette, is a percussion duo. Just as Message from Kenya combined the talents of Art Blakey and Sabu as an interlude for contrast in the Horace Silver BLP 1520, Rhythmorama offers a similarly challenging contest of rhythmic wits between Kenny Clarke, veteran expert of modern jazz drums, and Candido Comoro, thirty-five-year old Latin drum master of Regal, Havana, Cuba. Candido arrived in this country in October, 1952, after six years with a band at the famous Tropicana Club in Havana and six years on a local radio station. Like Kenny Clarke, who was a sideman and/or colleague of Dizzy Gillespie for many years in several bands, Candido owes some of his fame to Dizzy, who introduced him to the jazz set in New York. Rhythmorama provides both participants with an opportunity for an extended workout in which Kenny’s amazing facility for sticks on snare and cymbals vies for attention with the no less extraordinary rhythmic convolutions of Candido's bare but eloquent fingers. This should certainly rank as one of the outstanding sides of the year for drum fans.

Blues For Skeetar, Which closes the set, is named for Clifton “Skeeter” Best, a fine and greatly underrated guitarist who has been free-lancing for years around Now York. Taken at a medium-slow tempo with Candido again in evidence, it shows Tommy Flanagan in a delayed-beat chord style, Kenny in some fine chord solo work, and, last but by no means least, a long and extraordinary solo on bowed bass by the magnificent Mr. Chambers.

Since Blue Note did so much to bring to public attention the work of such modern guitarists as Tal Farlow BLP5042 and Sal Salvador BLP5035, it is fitting that Alfred Lion should be the one to present Kenny Burrell in his first LP. Only just post his twenty-fifth birthday, he seems destined, if his work on these sides is any indication, fer a brilliant future in jazz.

— LEONARD FEATHER

Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID K. MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

November 2012 - Blue Note Spotlight

The nondescript brown brick building at 15 Barrow Street in Greenwich Village currently houses the Barrow Street Ale House, but drink at the former home of the Café Bohemia for long enough, and the swish of Art Blakey‘s ride cymbal might just start emanating from the walls. At this old jazz haunt, the walls have ears, or they did. On November 23, 1955, Blakey and the third incarnation of his then relatively new group, the Jazz Messengers, gathered at the Café Bohemia for a late-night “cooking session” recorded for Blue Note that would immortalize a Greenwich Village of the mind lost to the sands of time.

On At the Café Bohemia, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, the Jazz Messengers were cooking hard bop at a time when it was the pièce de résistance at every jazz club in the Village, and Blakey was the master chef who set the standard for a thriving scene. This was the lineup of the Jazz Messengers that paired Blakey with the indomitable pianist Horace Silver, supported by tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, and bassist Doug Watkins—a syncopated feast of the senses.

The chef partakes, and the effervescence is palpable; Blakey feeds off the crowd, which listens with rapt attention until the end of a solo or a tune. The Jazz Messengers needed a captive audience to deliver their message in full, and their ferocious intensity was best captured live. Never mind recording difficulties; the diminutive, brick-and-mortar venue only fit 100 at full capacity, and was always packed, but despite its casual atmosphere, no clinking glasses or idle chatter interrupt the cut.

Vol. 1 begins with Blakey’s rich baritone: “And at this time, ladies and gentlemen, for those who’ve come in late, we are now having a little cooking session for Blue Note right here on the scene—putting the pot on in here,” Blakey says. “And we’d like for you to join us and have a ball.” The two volumes feature some classic tracks, among them “The Theme,” “Alone Together,” “Like Someone in Love,” and the Latin-tinged “Avila and Tequila.”

It was an intimate setting for a player of Blakey’s stature, but the Cafe Bohemia had long established its jazz pedigree. Previously known as the Pied Piper in the ’40s, the club played host to early Dixieland bands led by Max Kaminsky, trumpeter Frankie Newton, New Orleans-style trombonist Wilbur de Paris, and cutting contests between legendary stride pianists James P. Johnson and Willie “the Lion” Smith.

The Pied Piper became the Café Bohemia in 1949, when it was bought by James Garofolo, who strayed from strict jazz programming until Charlie Parker offered to play a residency there to settle his unpaid tab. Parker had begun frequenting the club—he lived across the street with poet Ted Joans at the time—and was allegedly kicked out one night in early 1955 after drinking too many Brandy Alexanders. Parker died that March, but the club’s heightened visibility from promoting the residency was enough to gain the necessary momentum for Garofolo to make the transition to progressive jazz impresario.

Before long, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Gerry Mulligan, and Lennie Tristano were playing there, with Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach often in the audience; Herbie Nichols was hired to play between sets. Jack Kerouac, Larry Rivers, David Amram, and other members of the Beat Generation flocked there for inspiration. The Bohemia had lived up to its name, bearing witness to a microcosm of the broader bohemian zeitgeist on any given night. When Blakey arrived, they were ready for him.

Blakey had a revolving door policy when it came to personnel, and this iteration of the Jazz Messengers is perhaps best appreciated through turning a critical lens on the front line of Mobley and Dorham. Vol. 1 opens with “Soft Winds,” a medium-tempo blues in the vein of “Moanin'” that serves as a vehicle for Mobley’s lyrical dance through the form that was his hallmark as a player. Dorham and Silver show off their technical mastery here, but the track belongs to Mobley, who could take a simple blues and tell a melodic shaggy dog story that always seemed on the verge of climax without ever getting tedious.

Lacking the fiery bluster of Coltrane or the cavalier swagger of Stan Getz or Zoot Sims, the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone is often shortchanged by critics; he makes it seem too effortless. But Mobley was a consummate craftsman, able to build an improvised solo that paid off every call-and-response riff with a sense of overarching narrative structure. Mobley maintained his own codified style, yet whatever he played cohered with the melody; no easy feat. Tenor players proved their mettle with Blakey through an understated approach that fostered group chemistry—Wayne Shorter and Benny Golson were among the others that meshed with his aggressive drumming style—and Mobley was ideal for the role.

The saxophonist begins his “Soft Winds” solo softly, playing a hair behind the beat on a series of eighth-note lines. By the second chorus, he has introduced triplets and sixteenths into the mix, weaving longer lines that establish rising action. By the third chorus, he stakes out his territory with a stentorian honk at the bottom of the horn that immediately jumps up an octave. He plays with this motif throughout the chorus, always with an air of restraint and a keen awareness of negative space that Blakey peppers with his trademark snare accents over an unerring bass line laid down by Watkins.

When Blakey goes into double time, Mobley doesn’t stutter or bleat; his adherence to narrative continuity is impeccable, and he continues developing the same ideas, only twice as fast. He finishes his final chorus in straight time with a quicksilver sixteenth-note flourish and an emphatic half note that propels Dorham into his solo.

The trumpeter shines on the searing ballad “I Waited for You,” a choice cut from Vol. 2 that highlights his unvarnished sound. A technical virtuoso, Dorham veers towards a minimalist style; he has a purity that seems to access some sonic truth, especially when playing ballads. Dorham, like Mobley, is too often critically overlooked, and for the same reason—his effortless playing falls somewhere between Clifford Brown and Chet Baker—but he too favors the middle path, the class act of jazz trumpet. His penchant for subtle narrative moves is evident throughout the ballad, with Dorham starting in the lower range before gravitating upwards, sustained notes yielding to accelerating riffs until a tender denouement that elegantly restates the melody. When his testimony is finished, the respectful applause reveals an audience that has just witnessed a kind of spiritual communion.

The critical mass of jazz fans and the excitement of the Village in 1955 that led to this seminal record date justifies its inclusion in the jazz canon, as much a historical artifact as it is a testament to Art Blakey‘s enduring legacy. More than the sound of surprise that pervades the recording, the sound of applause and the visceral sense of rising body heat on a cozy November night still has the power to instantly transport listeners to the golden age of hard bop.

http://www.bluenote.com/spotlight/art-blakey-at-the-caf-bohemia/