BLP 1572

Curtis Fuller - Bone and Bari

Released - November 1957

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, August 4, 1957
Curtis Fuller, trombone #1-3,5,6; Tate Houston, baritone sax #1-4,6; Sonny Clark, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums.

tk.2 Algonquin
tk.5 Bone & Bari
tk.7 Nita's Waltz
tk.8 Again
tk.10 Heart And Soul
tk.13 Pickup

Session Photos

Art Taylor

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Algonquin	Curtis Fuller	04/08/1957
Nita's Waltz	Curtis Fuller	04/08/1957
Bone and Bari	Curtis Fuller	04/08/1957
Side Two
Heart and Soul	Hoagy Carmichael, Frank Loesser	04/08/1957
Again	Dorcas Cochran, Lionel Newman	04/08/1957
Pickup	Curtis Fuller	04/08/1957

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	HAROLD FEINSTEIN
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	LEONARD FEATHER

Liner Notes

IT is possible though not probable, and entirely within the realm of fantasy, that Blue Note Records may have to pack up some day and move off, lock, stock and Van Gelder, to Detroit. The proportion of jazz talent developing there — Thad and Elvin Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell and Paul Chambers are but a few random samples — seems entirely unfair to the rest of these United States. Now comes one of the youngest, freshest and most important talents of all in the person of Curtis Fuller, whom some Blue Note aficionados have met on BLP 1567, his own first LP, or BLP 1571, on which he sat in with Bud Powell.

Some of the vital statistics of this prodigious young man were pointed out in the notes on his first album — the fact that he is a native Detroiter, born there December 15, 1934; and the remarkable telescoping of his academic career (he was barely 16 when he graduated from high school). Recently, intrigued by the details of Curtis’ background. I met him for the first time and sat with him listening to this new album. Before we played the record he filled me in with a few additional items concerning his career.

It was Jay Joy Johnson who, more by osmosis than consciously, started Curtis on his sliding course to jazz and the Apple. “I knew Jay when I was a boy,” Curtis told me, thus bringing to mind with a jolt that he was a boy only seven or eight years ago. “He used to come to town with Illinois Jacquet's band, and I would run to get his autograph or talk to him. Everybody was concentrating on Jacquet and paying very little attention to Jay, and it seemed to me that he was the man to listen to.

“Jay sort of took me under his wing. I wasn’t even playing trombone then, although I always did like the instrument. The main reason I took it up, I believe, was that after I had accumulated enough credits to graduate from senior high school, having completed all my academics, I just decided to fill in time by taking a lot of music and art courses. I wanted to play the saxophone, really, but the trombone and the baritone horn were the only things that happened to be left, and they already had a trombone player; so I played baritone horn for just a little while; then the trombone player left and I took over.

“I guess maybe I had a lot of natural talent, because it didn’t come too hard. This was in the academic year that began in September 1949 and I was just a little squirt. I didn’t really have it in my mind to do anything definite when I graduated. Music was just a fad. But while I was in the Army, with Cannonball Adderley as my sergeant, he was the one who made me make up my mind to stay with the trombone. The Adderleys were a wonderful inspiration. We had a very good marching band and a very fine jazz bond. This was in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and we had a bunch of wonderful musicians — men who are with Roy Anthony now, guys who worked before or since with any number of name bands.”

After the Army stint, followed by a period of further studies at Detroit and Wayne Universities, Curtis started playing gigs around Detroit with a group that was originally under the leadership of Kenny Burrell. Then, when Kenny went off to act as temporary replacement for Herb Ellis in the Oscar Peterson Trio, the combo was taken over by a drummer named John Hindel Butts; Kenny’s brother Bill was on bass, Tommy Flanagan on piano and Pepper Adams on baritone.

When Curtis come to New York in April 1957 he was with Yusef Lateef, whose combo he had joined about a year earlier. “We were supposed to just cut some sessions here and then go straight back to Detroit, after one week. But during that week Miles Davis heard me, and he offered me a job playing with him at the Bohemia.

“Well, I didn’t like to let Yusef down suddenly like that, so I went bock to Detroit to serve out my notice with him. Then when I came back to New York I did join Miles, but after a couple of nights the group suddenly broke up. So I went with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band.

“That was a strange job. I was playing the regular tenor trombone, but I had replaced Rod Leavitt, in the bass trombone chair, and I was reading bass trombone parts! It was ridiculous, of course, and it only lasted a couple of weeks — which was just as well, because I prefer working with small combos anyway; you get so much more of a chance to play.

“Well, by this time Miles was getting ready to reorganize, and I thought I was set to start with him again, but it turned out that Sonny Rollins had quit Max Roach and was going to join Miles and Miles couldn’t carry three horns, so it fell through again. Since then I’ve just been coming and going between Detroit and New York, and making records.”

This brings us with irrefutable logic to Curtis’ newest record, Bone & Bari. The “Bari” representative is Tate Houston, another talented musician whom Curtis knew around Detroit; they worked together there in a big band led by the ex-Basie trombonist Jimmy Wilkins. Tate hos played with Gillespie. Ernie Fields, James Moody and many other name bands, and for the past six months has been with the Maynard Ferguson orchestra. The pianist, Conrad Yeatis “Sonny” Clark, is of course best known for his years on tour with the Buddy De Franco Quartet. I don’t think it would be unfair to assume that the reader is already familiar with the names and achievements of Messrs. Chambers and Taylor, so with your permission we shall pass along directly to an examination of the performances.

Algonquin, the opening track and first of four Fuller originals in this set, is a minor-mode blues. Commenting immediately on the rich bone-&-bari blend, I elicited from Curtis the response: "Yes, I’ve always preferred it myself; it’s deeper and fuller than trombone and tenor, of course, and I got used to the sound during almost o year working with Pepper Adams.”

Nita’s Waltz, despite its unmistakable jazz timbre, has a certain intangible Strauss flavor. “This idea,” says Curtis, “came to me when I was in the subway with Alfred Lion, on the way back from visiting Bud Powell’s home when I was on the session with Bud. I started thinking of all the pretty things I used to know, and in particular a German folk tune that I heard when I was a kid. This idea evolved out of it.”

The rhythm section observes a legitimately swinging waltz feel throughout — “I didn’t want the beat turned around in any way,” says Curtis — enabling the improvising musicians to maintain the some genuinely rhythmic three-quarter-time mood that has informed on increasing number of jazz compositions during the past year. Clark, Fuller and Chambers are the soloists. “It’s simple. I love simplicity,” was Curtis’ observation as we listened to this delightfully relaxed track.

Bone & Bari, the title tune of the LP, has a curious origin. “I heard Eddie Fisher sing Count Your Blessings on TV and it gave me the idea for a theme moving downward diatonically the same way... Tate reminds me a little of Serge on this one, don’t you think?”. Sonny hos the first solo, a highly percussive single-note line well punctuated by Taylor. Chambers’ pizzicato excursion follows Curtis’ solo and matches it in agility of execution and richness of swinging ideas; then Art hos a workout with the sticks before the theme comes back.

Heart and Soul is a Hoagy Carmichael standard. Curtis handles it moderato, playing a melody chorus before taking off on the changes. Sonny follows (“He knew the tune and liked it — we just jammed around with it in the studio for a while and then cut it”), after which the amazing Mr. Chambers takes over. The reprise of the theme, with Paul offering on attractive two-beat underline, leads to a slow fade on the tag.

Tate has the spotlight to himself as Curtis steps aside for Again. (“I used to listen to Tate playing this tune about four years ago in Detroit, and I always wonted him to record it.”) Tate interprets the nostalgic melody with slight and discreet embellishments. Sonny has a sympathetic 16-measure interlude. Says Curtis. “Tate has always been hidden in one bond or another — he’s never had a chance to be out in the open. Now you con hear what he can really do.”

Pickup, which reunites the quintet for a fast finish, is a breakneck blues based on funky riff. Tate has the first solo ride, with Curtis joining him for some auxiliary riffing after the first five choruses. On Curtis’ own solo, which follows, notice how both his first and second choruses open with a rhythmically repeated single note, soon flowering out into a Fourth-of-July display of eighth-note fireworks and accelerating (figuratively, of course, not literally — the tempo is perfect) into a truly fantastic windup. (“Whew!” said Curtis. “Thought I’d never get out of that one olive!”) I asked Curtis to see if he could even tap his foot in four at this tempo, and needless to soy he soon hod to cut it in half (the topping, that is). Pickup is about as brilliant on example as you will hear around today of exceptional instrumental technique as a means to exciting instrumental ends. Sonny, too, is in there cooking for I forget how many choruses — not too many, that’s for sure; and when he’s had his say, the riff returns as, exhausted, the men prepare to run for the coffee and call it a day. It was a most unusual day, at that.

— LEONARD FEATHER

Cover Design by TOM HANNAN
Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER