BLP 1567

Curtis Fuller - The Opener

Released - August 1957

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, June 16, 1957
Curtis Fuller, trombone; Hank Mobley, tenor sax #1,2,5,6; Bobby Timmons, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums.

tk.3 Lizzy's Bounce
tk.6 Soon
tk.8 A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening
tk.10 Here's To My Lady
tk.12 Oscalypso
tk.14 Hugore

Session Photos

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

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening	Harold Adamson, Jimmy McHugh	16/06/1957
Hugore	Curtis Fuller	16/06/1957
Oscarlypso	Oscar Pettiford	16/06/1957
Side Two
Here's To My Lady	Rube Bloom, Johnny Mercer	16/06/1957
Lizzy's Bounce	Curtis Fuller	16/06/1957
Soon	George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin	16/06/1957

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	DAVID LUNN
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	ROBERT LEVIN

Liner Notes

“MAN, that cat can blow!’

The above was Bud Powell’s happy — rather surprised exclamation, addressed to Alfred Lion, at the completion of a Blue Note recording date. The “cat” he referred to was one Curtis Fuller, a young trombone player — fresh out of Detroit, who had just cut three tunes as a guest star with Bud’s trio. Bud’s surprise was understandable in view of the fact that he had never before seen or heard of Curtis Fuller. It was through the suggestion of Alfred Lion that he had agreed to have Curtis augment his group. There are very few knowing musicians who lack faith in Mr. Lion’s taste and keen recognition of budding talent. Bud, though by no means deeply elated, was no exception. He went into the idea expecting something good — at least an interesting experiment. and come out amazed; all smiles and full of superlatives.

The results of that wonderful session will soon be available on BLP 1571 but, perhaps I am getting a bit ahead of things. The record contained in the sleeve you are now holding constitutes Curtis Fuller first LP under his own leadership. As such it is an important record. Herein Curtis displays much more than just potential or “promise”. This album makes it all by itself and when you stop to consider that at the time of its recording Curtis was still in his early twenties, you realize that here is a young man who is going places. Bud Powell is not the only musician to hove acknowledged Fuller’s gifts. Miles Davis, Jay Jay Johnson (the man responsible for pointing Curtis in the direction of the Blue Note offices) and Horace Silver, among many others, have gone out of their way to express themselves in his behalf. These are people not given to impulsive judgment.

It is also significant to note that Curtis placed fourth as the “New Star” trombonist in a field of fourteen in the 1957 Down Beat Critics’ Poll. While at first glance this may not seem like a particularly astonishing feat it must be remembered that Curtís had only been on the big time scene two months and had no real recording exposure to speak of when the votes were cast!

Born in Detroit, Michigan on December 15, 1934, Curtis was first exposed to the world of music in his seventh year when his mother bought him a “school” trombone. He took lessons but discontinued them when his mother died a year later. He was not to pick up the trombone again until the Spring of 1950. He graduated high school in 1950 when he was only sixteen years old and took a course in Sociology at Michigan State Normal. He stayed for only one term.

“I was young and foolish. I just wanted clothes and a car, you know. So I went to work as a clerk in a grocery store. After a while I decided to try to get a job with the Kaiser-Frazer Aircraft plant. You had to be eighteen to be employed there, so I falsified my age and got in.”

Curtis worked there for almost a year and then, ironically since he had not yet reached eighteen, was drafted, “Things like that ore just part of the dues you have to pay. Anyway, I had the good fortune to have as my Sergeant, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. He inspired me to go back to the trombone and I played it, along with baritone horn, in army bands. When I got out of the army I went to Detroit University for awhile and then to Wayne University and then I started gigging around Detroit. I played with John Butt’s group that hod Kenny Burrell and his brother Bill, who played bass, Tommy Flanagan and Pepper Adorns.”

The group broke up when K. Burrell left to join Oscar Peterson but Curtis stayed on in Detroit (until the Spring of 1957 when he came to New York) working at the Blue Bird and Kline’s with Barry Harris and Yusef Lateef.

Upon his arrivol in the “Apple” Curtis worked briefly with Miles Davis at the Cafe Bohemia and then with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, Sonny Rollins, the Adderley Brothers, Burrell and Duke Jordan. He also recorded with Cliff Jordan (BLP 1565), pianist Sonny Clarke (BLP 1570), as well as Bud Powell.

Curtis lists a variety of trombonists as being influences and favorites; Jay Jay Johnson and Bob Brookmeyer have made the strongest impression but there ore also Bill Harris, Jack Teagarden, Urbie Green, Jimmy Cleveland, Carl Fontana and Kai Winding. As his all-time favorites on other instruments Curtis names, Bird, Miles, Diz, Sonny Rollins, Bud, Monk, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Art Blakey and Max Roach.

Curtis’ sidemen on this date Hank Mobley, Bobby Timmons, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor need no introduction to followers of the Blue Note scene. Mobley has three of his own albums on Blue Note (BLP 1540, BLP 1544 and BLP 1550) in addition to those with the Jazz Messengers (BLP 1507, BLP 1508 and BLP1518), Horace Silver (BLP 1539 and BLP 1562) and Lee Morgan (BLP 1541). Timmons can be heard with Kenny Dorham (BLP 1523). Chambers’ own LPs (BLP 1534, BLP 1564 and BLP 1569) ore complimented by his dates with Kenny Burrell (BLP 1543 and BLP 1523), Morgan (BLP 1541) and Mobley (BLP 1540). Taylor has sparked the groups of Bud Powell (BLP 1504), Lou Donaldson (BLP 1537 and BLP 1545) and is on the fabulous Art Blakey “Orgy In Rhythm” sides (BLP 1554 and BLP 1555). At this writing Mobley (who is present on all but the two opening tracks) is a member of the Max Roach Quintet while Chambers and Taylor are both laying down a solid rhythmic foundation in Miles Davis’ unit.

A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening (and we might say that listening to this disc would make a lovely and swinging way to spend at least part of an evening — several times weekly) opens the set. Fuller embraces the pretty ballad with warmth and delicacy. Timmons (quoting Man With A Horn) and Chambers follow through with equally moving and tasteful statements.

Hugare, a blues by Fuller, begins with a unison riff theme that is followed by Mobley’s effective, evenly flowing tenor and a meaty, funky stint by Curtis. Timmons and Chambers excel in a similar groove before the horns return to the theme.

Oscar Pettiford’s Oscalypso is the most exciting tune in the set. Curtis and Hank play with the theme (Curtis pointed and gutty; Hank in a lazy, drawling fashion) over Taylor’s crisp cymbal figurations before they go out on their respective excursions. A brief piano bit and then A.T. extends himself preceeding the fade-out close.

Fuller’s sensitive, reverent approach to the melody of a ballad is again shown to fine advantage on the sadly beautiful Here’s To My Lady. His winsome solo is succeeded by a dreamily thoughtful Chambers and an easy, lyrical Timmans.

Lizzy’s Bounce, by Fuller, similar in structure to Hugore only taken at a more spritely tempo and with Curtis at the top of the order gives Curtis, then Hank, Paul and Bobby equal chance to come out and “bounce” o bit. I wonder if “Lizzy” bounces as provocatively — if she does she must be a gas!

George Gershwin’s evergreen, Soon, a happy type song not too often played by modern jazz groups but nevertheless an outstanding vehicle for soloists in a happy mood (in this case Curtis, Hank, Curtis again. Paul and Bobby) provides on excellent close to a decidedly excellent album.

This then is Curtis Fuller’s original LP as a leader. It could quite conceivably stand as a collector’s item in years to come, for Curtis will go far in his chosen profession.

— ROBERT LEVIN

Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT THE OPENER

Robert Levin misspoke when he identified The Opener as Curtis Fuller's first album as a leader; but, then again, he may have meant his first released album. While the latter claim is hard to verify a half-century later, Blue Note files indicate that this June 16, 1957 session was in the stores a mere two months later. This rush to release, as well as the flurry of recording activity that surrounded it, confirms the excitement that the trombonist created upon arriving in New York, a buzz that no less a connoisseur of brass playing than Gunther Schuller was still marveling at decade's later when he recalled first hearing Fuller at Birdland's Monday night sessions.

Fuller had arrived on the East Coast in April '57 as a member of the Yusef Lateef quintet. That band recorded three sessions for Savoy and Verve, and then headed home to Detroit minus its young trombonist. By early May, Fuller had caught the attention of Prestige Records, which brought him to Rudy Van Gelder's four times in the space of eight days to record as a sideman with Paul Quinichette; his own New Trombone, a session where leadership was shared with Red Garland; and an unusual Teddy Charles production that included Fuller, the French horns of David Amram and Julius Watkins, and pianist Hampton Hawes. Then it was Blue Note's turn to feature Fuller, first on Cliff Jordan (cut two weeks before the present album) and then again in July on Sonny Clark's Dial S for Sonny, before his August appearance on Bud! The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume 3.

Such extensive studio work (which continued into early 1958, yielding three more Blue Note albums with Fuller as leader and such notable sideman credits as Jimmy Smith's Houseparty and John Coltrane's Blue Train), is not difficult to understand, because Curtis Fuller was a true new star, one clearly indebted to J.J. Johnson yet already displaying signs of a personal sound and conception. As the present program indicates, Fuller was also uncommonly astute in his choice of material and a precociously mature ballad player. "Soon" had yet to become a favorite among modern jazz instrumentalists, "Oscalypso" had only been recorded previously by its composer and future Fuller employer Art Blakey, and the ballad features "A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening" and "Here's to My Lady" — wereeven bolder choices. Producer Alfred Lion's decision to open each side of the original LP with a ballad is indicative of how truly astounding this aspect of the young trombonist's style seemed at the time.

Here and throughout his Blue Note catalog, the ensembles are less parochial than the Detroit-heavy casts of Fuller's earlier recordings. The only homeboy heard in support here is Paul Chambers, who had already cut two albums of his own for Blue Note, and who is featured so heavily throughout that he tends to supplant pianist Bobby Timmons as the session's number three soloist. Timmons made his recording debut a year earlier on Kenny Dorham's 'Round About Midnight at the Café Bohemia, then spent several months on the West Coast with Chet Baker. The pianist's first studio appearance upon returning to New York was under Hank Mobley's leadership on the Blue Note album Hank.

Mobley appears on four of the six tracks, and while he did not contribute any original music, his expertise was no doubt appreciated by Fuller, who is captured in one of the session photos paying close attention as Mobley works over one of the scores. The hesitation we hear before the final tenor chorus on "Hugore" suggests a last-minute signal for Mobley to take one more. It also bears pointing out that, contrary to Levin, Fuller's other original is in no way "similar in structure to 'Hugore.'" On the contrary, "Lizzie's Bounce" sports an AABA chorus structure and harmonies that recall "Paper Moon."

Fuller went on to an illustrious career after leaving Blue Note in early-1958. His resume includes work with Lester Young, Gil Evans, Quincy Jones, and Art Blakey; an association with Benny Golson that began at the Five Spot and ultimately led to the Golson/Art Farmer Jazztet (of which Fuller was a charter member); several more recordings under his own name, including the 1959 Savoy classic Blues-ette; a brief two-bone partnership with Kai Winding; and, after a serious battle with lung disease, a career that continues to this day. Without question, he has delivered on the promise that shines through so clearly on The Opener.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2008