BLP 4113

Freddie Roach - Down to Earth

Released - November 1962

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 23, 1962
Percy France, tenor sax; Freddie Roach, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

tk.3 Lion Down
tk.10 Ahm Miz
tk.17 Lujon
tk.18 De Bug
tk.19 Althea Soon
tk.23 More Mileage

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
De Bug	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Ahm Miz	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Lujan	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Side Two
Althea Soon	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
More Mileage	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Lion Down	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962

Liner Notes

THE Hammond organ has been upon us in growing quantity and volume during the past few years. Although there are in the playing of some of the emergent organists which make sense to me in a jazz context, it has been difficult to convert me into an enthusiastic admirer of the instrument as a whole. In the past, I had been delighted by the infrequent organ forays of Fats Waller and Count Basie, but those two personages had approached the jazz organ with just those qualities which most of the younger organists lack — clarity of texture and line, suppleness of swing, and incisiveness of phrasing. Finally, in Freddie Roach, there is a musician who does make the organ into a persuasive jazz instrument; and I think that this first album of his as a leader will cause some long-needed rethinking on the optimum role of the organ in Jazz.

I had first heard Freddie Roach's bracingly conception on the albums in which he participated under Ike Quebec's leadership — Heavy Soul, Blue Note 4093 and It Might As Well Be Spring, Blue Note 4105. I mentioned my surprise at hearing so refreshing an organ style to Ike, and he pointed out that he used Freddie precisely because Freddie did not have what Ike terms the "soggy sound" of most jazz organists. After hearing Freddie in this set, I asked Freddie how he conceived the role of the organ and what explained the difference in his way of playing it.

"To begin with," Freddie said, "I have been playing for some years with a lot of hornmen I admire a great deal. Therefore, I couldn't allow myself to overpower them. I had to learn to play down so that I could listen to and learn from them. Furthermore, the more I played organ, the more I realized how complex it is and how many different ways you can make it sound. I found it is not necessary to have it come out muddy. In fact, I can't stand the sound of a hard organ. That sound comes from overloading. It comes from a man playing the manual in registers that are too low. It may also come from his setting his stops too bright and it often results from voicing chords so that the harmonics become too jumbled and therefore fuzzy. You have to be very selective in voicing chords when you play organ and accordingly, you have to know your harmony."

Freddie Roach fulfills his own requirements for effective jazz organ playing with consistent skill and zest, as you can hear in this session. Interestingly, the organ — a pump organ — was the first instrument he ever played so that he has been thinking about the problems of the organ ever since he began to function musically. Freddie was born in the Bronx on May 11, 1931. The maternal side of his family wag exceptionally musical. His mother was a church organist. An uncle, Robert Birchet, was a pianist and led a big band in the East a number of years ago. And his grandmother had been a concert pianist as well as a choir director at the Salem Baptist Church in Jersey City.

Freddie grew up in the Bronx, in White Plains, and in New Jersey. While living with an aunt in White plains, Freddie, then about eight, felt driven to express himself musically, but the only instrument in the house was a pipe organ, and that's Where he began. In the succeeding years. he was largely self-taught on both piano and organ except term at the Newark Conservatory. When he was around eighteen, Freddie's professional career started seriously when he joined a group called The Strollers which was led by Grachan Moncur, once a member of the saltily swinging Savoy Sultans. From 1951 to 1953, Freddie was in the Marine Corps where he played in the band. After being released, his apprenticeship in jazz became intensified. first in Canada, and then on the road with Cootie Williams, Chris Columbus, and later Lou Donaldson. On some of these jobs he played piano and organ. On the piano, he had long admired Art Tatum and Bud Powell, and then Hank Jones and John Lewis. Increasingly, however, he had been drawn to specialize on the organ, and during the past few years, he has focused on that instrument with the exception of a few gigs on piano. His favorites on the organ include Jackie Davis ("for command of the instrument"), Jimmy Smith ("for swing"), and Shirley Scott ("for taste").

Freddie currently lives in Newark which serves as a base for his occasional expeditions with his own combo or as a single. And he is a regular at the challenging Tuesday night sessions at the Club 83 where he has worked with Jackie McLean, Kenny Dorham, Yusef Lateef, and "Cannonball" Adderley. Freddie's association with Ike Quebec for Blue Note led to this album, and Freddie was careful to choose sidemen he not only admired musically but was close to personally. "That way," Freddie explains, "there was no tension or bickering on the date. It was a marvelous feeling once we got into the studio. There was none of that competition to find out who was the hippest cat in the room. Everybody helped everybody else, and so, everybody had a ball. It was so happy a date that the title of the album, Down to Earth, expresses what happened perfectly. We all took our shoes off, so to speak, and just played with complete relaxation."

The title of De Bug comes in part from Freddie's wry feeling about his last name and also from a series of chords at the end which reminded him somehow of a cockroach. It's a blues in 3/4 time, and an interesting fact about the melody is that it starts on the fifth and then goes up in a cycle of fourths. Like ail of Freddie's compositions, the piece indicates an unforced skill at creating infectious melodic lines and a firm sense of uncluttered development. Here, as throughout the album, Kenny Burrell plays with particular warmth rhythmic fluidity, and crisp imagination. As Freddie says about Kenny, "he's one of the few guitarists who has a funky bag and also has a clear technique. And he's not only a superior soloist. The way he voices changes and otherwise comps behind you helps a great deal."

The big, bursting sound of tenor saxophonist Percy France has been heard with Bill Doggett, Sir Charles Thompson, and Jimmy Smith (on Jimmy's Home Cookin' for example, on Blue Note 4050). As for Freddie's own playing, it's stimulatingly evident from the start of his solo in De Bug that he's very much his own man. There is the tart, penetrating sound he gets as well as the resiliency of his beat. Most organists sound blurrily, poundingly alike, but Freddie has a sound and style that are instantly identifiable as no one else's.

Ahm Miz is a play on the spoken word, so far as its title is concerned. Another way of putting its point would be "I'm is." Freddie had been trying to teach his 12-year-old to speak more distinctly, but he kept coming up against this kind of mumbled answer. Freddie would say, "Haven't you finished doing that?" The boy would reply. "I'm is. Hence the tune, It's a blues with somewhat different chord changes, and its performances emphasize again the easy rapport between these four musicians. Worth noting is the firm, attentive drumming of Clarence Johnston, who has been a regular member of Harry "Sweets" Edison's combo for some time. "Clarence also lives in Newark," says Freddie. "and from time to time, we've had some wonderful sessions. I like his definiteness - the definiteness of his beat and of his drive."

Lujon, a Henry Mancini tune, is the only track on this album which Freddie didn't write. "I was attracted to it," Freddie says, "because it has such n beautiful, simple melody. I was also intrigued the whole song is based on ninths — major and minor ninths. And the way the melody and the chords are shaped, once you get to the bridge, there's nothing you can do but swing. That's Kenny at the beginning, by the way, adding to the percussive effect we wanted. He does it by kind of punching the strings. It's difficult to execute but it was just the sound I wanted." In the body of the number, Kenny reappears with a glowingly lyrical solo, which is complemented by Percy France's equally reflective but more bristling contribution.

Althea Soon received its title because of Freddie's affection for playing on words. ("I originally thought of calling it Althea Later," he explains the rather lisp-like joke.) It's a sunnily unpretentious theme and once again, Percy France plays with virile ease; Kenny Burrell solos With his characteristic combination of strength and grace; and Freddie plunges into the proceedings with that singular pungency, sinewy inventiveness, and calliope-like high spirits that make his work so appealing.

More Mileage is thus called because of Freddie's admiration for Miles Davis. "l like the simplicity of Miles' way of doing things," Freddie emphasizes, "and I guess you could call this a simple melody in Miles' idiom." The final Lion Down is dedicated by Freddie to Alfred Lion, head of Blue Note. '"Al has been like a father to me," says Freddie, "and I wanted to say how I felt about him in music. One of the things I dig about him is the completeness with which he's involved in the music he records. Here is a president of a record company who makes all the rehearsals and who makes sure he gets to know everybody personally." The tune is a buoyant blues, and distills the "down to earth" atmosphere of the album as a whole.

I expect a great deal more is going to be heard from Freddie Roach. Aside from the spirit and imagination With which he plays, the man has a thoughtful, searching approach to the organ. "The instrument," Freddie points out, "has so many possibilities that I don't think any one ever gets to really use it completely. But it is possible to learn to use it so that it really fits into a jazz group and isn't simply an instrument that sticks out. To do that you have to really hear what the other men are playing, and that way, you can blend With the group. Some organists never even change their stops, but the musical situation is always changing. There are different ways of comping for a trumpet or a saxophone or a guitar. And there are many different ways of voicing your solos. You just have to be aware of what's going on."

That Freddie is continually alert to the evolving musical situation is quite clear throughout this album. Also clear is that he has developed a penetratingly personal style by learning what not to play. He is an unusually judicious organist, and therefore, his playing does have a freshness of texture and a viability of phrasing that makes many other organists sound by contrast as if they were single-mindedly trying to blow down the walls. Freddie, however, listens — to himself and to the men he's playing with — and as always, the most rewarding jazzmen are those Who listen best.

—NAT HENTOFF 

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