BLP 4130

John Patton - Along Came John

Released - July 1963

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 5, 1963
Fred Jackson, Harold Vick, tenor sax; John Patton, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Ben Dixon, drums.

tk.2 The Silver Meter
tk.3 Spiffy Diffy
tk.12 Gee Gee
tk.14 Along Came John
tk.20 Pig Foots
tk.21 I'll Never Be Free

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
The Silver Meter	Ben Dixon	05 April 1963
I'll Never Be Free	Bennie Benjamin, George Weiss	05 April 1963
Spiffy Diffy	Ben Dixon	05 April 1963
Side Two
Along Came John	John Patton	05 April 1963
Gee Gee	John Patton	05 April 1963
Pig Foots	Ben Dixon	05 April 1963

Liner Notes

LOU DONALDSON’S LP The Natural Soul (Blue Note 4108) introduced an organist whose name was probably unfamiliar to most of those who heard the record. His name is John Patton, and with Along Came John he becomes the newest addition to the Blue Note talent roster.

New names are important to any record company, and perhaps to Blue Note more than most, since it is an independent dealing exclusively with jazz, and the jazz audience is a notably fickle one. But the list of those who have recorded first for Blue Note makes an eminently respectable list of musicians, as most people are aware, so it follows that there must be something to the company’s talent scouting methods. Primarily, Alfred Lion trusts his own ear, and records what he likes, but he also respects the opinion of those who record for him, so that many Blue Note artists double as talent scouts-without-portfolio.

John Patton came to Blue Note’s attention through the recommendation of Lou Donaldson, with whom he works. Donaldson, incidentally, was also the medium through which Grant Green, the guitarist on this set, was first recorded. But, Donaldson and Blue Note temporarily ode, Patton is an excellent instance of where the largest untapped reservoir of new jazz talent lies.

Patton, who is twenty-seven, comes from Kansas City, Missouri. He has played piano since he was about twelve. His mother, whom Patton says is an excellent pianist, performed around Kansas City in churches and with social groups. Most of Patton’s professional experience comes from having been pianist in the band fronted by the vocalist Lloyd Price. Price, whose biggest popular success was probably Personality of a few years back, is a vocalist who also leads a small rhythm-and-blues band. Other such bands, like those led at various times by Louis Jordan and Ray Charles, have been fecund breeding grounds for players, giving them matchless on-the- job experience of the kind denied those musicians who spend the majority of their professional lives in recording studios. Charles, for instance, has been the catalyst by which Don Wilkersõn, David Newman, Hank Crawford, Phillip Guilbeau and Marcus Belgrave have become known, and his band now includes the fine tenor saxophonist James Clay. As the more basic forms of jazz and rhythm-and-blues become more closely associated, it stands to reason that organizations such as Charles’ will be a stepping-stone for more and more players.

It is interesting to note how the careers of the men on this LP hove common denominators. Patton and saxophonist Harold Vick have worked with Lloyd Price; saxophonist Fred Jackson has worked with Lionel Hampton, who owns and operates one of the last of the big bands; Grant Green has worked with organist Jack McDuff and with Patton in the Lou Donaldson combo; drummer Ben Dixon has worked with all of them. What this seems to imply is that as the big band business gets more and more unstable, and as the few top-money jazz combos continue to exchange personnel, the new players will be coming from such sources as the ones listed.

Patton, as noted, is a case in point. And he also exemplifies the constant interrelationship between music and economics. Until he left Lloyd Price two years ago, he was a pianist. But at that time he noted, as many have noted, that it was far easier to get work as an organist than as a piano player. Since the instrument intrigued him anyway, he decided to try it. Although Patton does not mention his name, it is a safe bet that another Blue Note discovery, Jimmy Smith, has been responsible for the metamorphosis of more pianists into organists than anyone else. “I began to hear the organ,” Patton says of his first experiences with the instrument, ‘I began to hear what you could do with it. I got attached to it, and every time I played, the closer I would get to what I wanted.” The change from one instrument to the other was not entirely simple, Patton says, but “if you put your mind to it, you can play it, or you find out that you can’t. Of course, some guys jive with it.”

That last remark is practically inevitable. As with anything, the organ, ¡n its flush of commercial potential, has attracted players with more interest in money than music, who will play exactly what is expected of them. Patton, on the other hand, seems to have a real feeling for his new mode of expression, and in exploring its potential. He does not, as you will hear, rely solely on artificial excitement to make his points, and has a somewhat unusual approach to the instrument, less overtly orchestral than that of many current players.

For his first album as a leader, Patton chose to make a basic blues date. That, of course, ¡s the kind of LP most closely associated with organ, but it achieves variety here from the way that the two tenors are employed. Rather than give a tune-by-tune rundown of solos, it should be sufficient to say that Vick is the more “mainstream” player of the two, while Fred Jackson’s solos may occasionally remind the listener of John Coltrane, especially on Gee Gee. The other major soloist is Grant Green, most notably on the title track, Along Came John. Green, surely, is now well enough known to need no biographical notes. His latest Blue Note album is Feelin’ The Spirit (4132).

The two tracks mentioned are Patton originals. Three others — The Silver Meter, Spiffy Diffy and Pig Foots’ — are by drummer Ben Dixon. Of these, the most striking is The Silver Meter, which sounds, in its insistent rhythm figure, as though it had been titled for a train. The one standard on the set, I’ll Never Be Free, is, appropriately enough, a staple with rhythm-and-blues groups throughout the country.

Patton is aware of the tendency to attach labels to performers, and wishes to avoid having this happen to him. While this ¡s a blues LP, the blues are not his only means of expression. “You can only express so much in the blues,” he says, “but I love to play them.” It is evident he loves them from the way he plays, and what he ¡s able to express with the blues should make the announcement of his arrival a cause for great pleasure. A lot of people will be glad that Along Came John.

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