BLP 4116 (NR)

Jackie McLean - Vertigo

Released - November 1962

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 2, 1959
Donald Byrd, trumpet; Jackie McLean, alto sax; Walter Davis Jr., piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Pete La Roca, drums.

tk.5 Formidable

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 11, 1963
Donald Byrd, trumpet; Jackie McLean, alto sax; Herbie Hancock, piano; Butch Warren, bass; Tony Williams, drums.

tk.2 Vertigo
tk.6 Dusty Foot (aka Soul Time)
tk.9 Marney
tk.14 Yams
tk.17 Cheers

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Marney	Donald Byrd, Bernard Herrmann	11 February 1963
Dusty Foot	Jackie McLean	11 February 1963
Formidable	Walter Davis, Jr.	02 May 1959
Side Two
Vertigo	Jackie McLean	11 February 1963
Cheers	Jackie McLean	11 February 1963
Yams	Herbie Hancock	11 February 1963

BN-LT-1085 Liner Notes

THIS album was something of a reunion for Jackie McLean and Donald Byrd, whose careers intersected regularly throughout the second half of the Fifties. They first worked together in George Wallington's quintet with Paul Chambers and Art Taylor in the autumn of 1955, a band that was thankfully documented with a live recording from the Cafe Bohemia. During their stint with the pianist, McLean recorded his first album using Donald in the front line.

From January 1956 through March 1957, a period of extraordinary jazz recording activity, they appeared together on seven albums from Prestige, including McLean's first two for the label, jam session dates and albums by Art Taylor, Gene Ammons and Hank Mobley.

At the end of 1958, both men signed with Blue Note Records, appearing on each other's debut albums, McLean's Jackie's Bag and Byrd's Off To The Races. Within the next 18 months, they were together on Jackie's New Soil and Donald's Fuego and Byrd In Flight as well as pianist Walter Davis's Davis Cup.

More than a year and a half later came this Vertigo session, after which these musicians have yet to record together again. At this time Jackie began exploring more experimental and freer approaches to the music, while Donald began to formulate a number of approaches to the earthier, bluesier side of the tradition. Both men have remained friends and in close contact to this day.

The 1963 session is of discographical interest, not only because it is a reunion of sorts For the front line, but also because it is the first recording session of the young Boston drummer Tony Williams, who Jackie had taken under his wing and brought to New York.

From this February session, things started to happen quickly. Williams and Byrd were on Herbie Hancock's second album My Point Of View in March. A month later, the Hancock-Warren-Williams rhythm section heard here backed up Kenny Dorham and Joe Henderson on Dorham's masterpiece Una Mas, and Williams recorded again with Jackie McLean on his ground-breaking One Step Beyond with Grachan Moncur and Bobby Hutcherson. Then, by mid-May, Tony Williams and Herbie Hancock were in the studio with Miles Davis and members of his new quintet.

McLean's '"Vertigo" is a significant performance in this artist's evolution. The alto saxophonist first began the challenge of extended forms and the absence of a chord sequence as an improvising guide during his brief time with Charles Mingus's quintet in 1956. Tunes like "Quadrangle" and "A Fickle Sonance" from his earlier Blue Note dates represented an absorption on Mingus's principle to some extent. With the 1962 album Let Freedom Ring, McLean made his first complete statement as a composer and soloist who is under no obligation to use the conventional chord sequence as the foundation of the music. With One Step Beyond, Jackie was to find a totally compatible unit that could think and create on his level and contribute equally to the music that resulted.

The title tune is a mere two months away from One Step Beyond in development as well as time. McLean fashions two interweaving lines for the horns with a punctuated tag; the rhythm is as much a pulse as it is a meter. Herbie's comping is remarkably similar to that of Hutcherson on One Step Beyond under the alto solo. The solos are alto, trumpet, piano and finally drums with each player given a free hand in the construction of the solo, a free hand that they all use judiciously and wisely.

"Cheers" is a more conventional swinger with an ABAB construction with the alto taking the A melody and the trumpet the B melody in the theme. McLean, Byrd and Hancock are the soloists.

"Marney" is a complex steeplechase devised by Donald Byrd. Cannonball Adderley had recorded it just six months prior to this version. Everyone glides through the hurdles beautifully with a burning McLean leading the way.

Donald's other contribution "Dusty Foot' might best be described as sophisticated funk. Herbie and Tony dig in with as much feeling and expertise as they do on "Vertigo." Byrd is especially puckish and soulful on his solo.

"Yams" is a Herbie Hancock tune with that easy after-hours blues feeling. Butch Warren is represented here by one of his rare recorded bass solos.

In a sense, this date runs the spectrum of the Blue Note approaches of the sixties. Like so many other sessions, it is impossible to ascertain why the date was not issued in its time. But it is clear that the answer probably lies in "Vertigo" and what it foreshadowed. If Jackie was in the studio two months later recording One Step Beyond, that certainly made this session obsolete on an immediate level, even if its value is timeless in the long-range scheme of things. And One Step Beyond was quickly followed by Grachan Moncur's Evolution and McLean's Destination Out and so it goes.

It is no surprise that Jackie McLean is playing as powerfully and creatively as he ever has in 1981. Nor should it be surprising that each statement throughout the career of an artist of his stature is strong and lasting.

—MICHAEL CUSCUNA, 1981