BLP 4134 (NR)

Horace Parlan - Happy Frame of Mind

Released - 1986

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 15, 1963
Johnny Coles, trumpet; Booker Ervin, tenor sax; Horace Parlan, piano; Grant Green, guitar #1-5; Butch Warren, bass; Billy Higgins, drums.

tk.6 Happy Frame Of Mind
tk.7 A Tune For Richard
tk.10 Home In Africa
tk.15 Dexi
tk.18 Back From The Gig
tk.21 Kucheza Blues

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Home is Africa	Ronnie Boykins	15 February 1963
A Tune For Richard	Booker Ervin	15 February 1963
Back From The Gig	Horace Parlan	15 February 1963
Side Two
Dexi	Johnny Coles	15 February 1963
Kucheza Blues	Randy Weston	15 February 1963
Happy Frame Of Mind	Horace Parlan	15 February 1963

Liner Notes

Although still quite active, Horace Parlan is something of a forgotten figure in modern jazz. That is due in part to the ebbing jazz scene of the late sixties, which left a great many fine artists with little or no work and in part to Parlan's migration to Copenhagen in 1973. In fact, he has only come back to play the United States on one occasion, in the early eighties.

But Parlan is an excellent pianist and composer, and much of his finest work was preserved on Blue Note Records from 1959 to 1963.

Born in Pittsburgh, on January 19, 1931, Horace suffered a polio attack at age five that left his right hand paralyzed. His parents urged him to start studying the piano as physical therapy. Eventually he was able to develop use of his thumb and forefinger. By his early teens, he began to take music seriously, inspired by the many jazz radio broadcasts of the day, he soon decided to make music his life's work.

Horace's parents felt otherwise, so he entered the University of Pittsburgh, taking courses in Pre-Law for three semesters. But he couldn't shake music from his consciousness and subsequently switched his studies to the Pittsburgh Musical and Carnegie Institutes. From 1952 to '57, Parlan worked professionally around Steeltown with visiting jazz musicians, as well as with local talent, such as Tommy and Stanley Turrentine. In 1957, having acquired a number of contacts in new York, as a result of his work with these touring jazz men, Horace decided to make the big move. He did this in the company of Booker Ervin, a young tenor saxophonist from Texas, who had similar plans. During the reed player's stopover in Pittsburgh, on his way to tackle the Big Apple, the two immediately struck up a strong musical and personal friendship, and made the trip together.

By being in the right place at the right time, Parlan found himself in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop just ten days after hitting town. A year or so later, Horace helped bring Ervin into the same band.

In 1960, Parlan, bassist George Tucker and drummer Al Harewood became the house band at Minton's Playhouse and the latest in a series of fine house rhythm sections for Blue Note. They made several trio albums, under Parlan's name, and quintet albums with the Turrentine brothers, under both Horace's and Stanley's leadership. They also backed up other artists such as Dexter Gordon (Doin' Alright) and Lou Donaldson (Midnight Sun). This trio, plus Booker Ervin, was also a co-operative quartet working at Minton's and elsewhere in New York. Their final recording as a unit was Parlan's Up And Down with Ervin and Grant Green in the front line.

Horace did not record again, as a leader, for another nineteen months, at which time he made Happy Frame of Mind. For this session, the group consisted of Parlan, Grant Green, Booker Ervin, plus trumpeter Johnny Coles, in the front line, and utilized the great Blue Note team of Butch Warren and Billy Higgins to complete the rhythm section.

Horace first heard Grant Green, in his native St. Louis, while the pianist was touring with a Lou Donaldson group. Both Lou and Parlan were impressed by the guitarist and it was Donaldson who prodded Green to come to New York and also convinced Alfred Lion to sign him to Blue Note. Horace got a chance to record with Gereen on Stanley Turrentine's Up At Minton's (BST-84069/4070; two volumes) and invited Grant to be on Up And Down (BST-84082 and subsequently on this present session as well. Grant Green was certainly a guitarist of great depth and versatility. He was a soulful burner in an organ setting and a resourceful, inventive artist in more progressive and complex situations.

Trumpeter Johnny Coles, who is still active in the U.S., is a warm, lyrical improviser with a gorgeous tone. He had, by this time, already made his mark, with James Moody's small band, in the Gil Evans Orchestra (with whom he frequently continues to work), and on his own beautiful quartet album for Epic (The Warm Sound). This present Parlan session was Coles' first appearance on Blue Note, but he soon recorded with Grant Green (Am I Blue/BST-84139) and made his own date, as a leader for the label, Little Johnny C (BST-84144). In the late sixties, Coles was a member of the Herbie Hancock Sextet which made its debut for Blue Note on The Prisoner (BST-84231).

Bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins were a marvelous team for two Blue Note house rhythm sections, one with Sonny Clark and another with Herbie Hancock. They enhanced the drive and sparkle of countless albums for the label.

Home Is Africa, by the late bassist Ronnie Boykins, is an interesting and haunting piece. The repeated four-bar bass pattern and African-flavored rhythmic cycle set up the buoyant, floating melody to give the performance a feeling of suspended time. Coles, Ervin and Green take effective solos, but it is Parlan's which takes the most unexpected turns and explores a variety of harmonic textures.

Booker Ervin's A Tune For Richard is a 48-bar composition that has basically on AAB construction. Like many of Ervin's tunes, it has a swirling, roller coaster effect and a strong forward motion. All four soloists sound as if they are having a great deal of fun skating across the chord changes and developing ideas at a fast clip.

Parlan worked with Rahsaan Roland Kirk's quartet from '63 to '66. One of their earliest road gigs was at a small club in Cincinnati. They arrived to find only an organ in the joint, an instrument which Horace has always been loathe to play. Unfortunately, the battered piano that was eventually brought in proved to be on equally unpleasant alternative. On the welcome flight home, Parlan wrote Back From The Gig, a tone poem of relief and serenity. The solo order is piano, guitar, tenor sax and bass. Horace re-recorded this tune ten years later when he first moved to Copenhagen.

Dexi is a Johnny Coles piece with a riff melody and a chord cycle that moves into modality. All of the soloists dig in and stay with the furious tempo, often moving outside of the conventions of modern jazz improvisation.

Randy Weston's Kucheza Blues in 6/8 is one of the movements of his superb Uhuru Africa Suite and yet another of his gorgeous triple meter pieces. Green lays out for this one and Parlan, Ervin, Coles and Warren all solo. Booker steals the show here with his finest solo of the day. Throughout his career, with Weston or with his own groups, Ervin proved to be one of the most impassioned and inspired interpreters of Randy's music.

Parlan's Happy Frame Of Mind is an aptly titled blues whose theme is repeated twice. Grant, Horace and Booker all take relaxed, cheerful, extended solos. Coles and Higgins trade fours for another chorus before the drummer takes two for himself.

This session show great care in its choice of varied material and its blend of six distinct musical identities. The results certainly speak for themselves. Yet, this is one of those 'missing number' Blue Note albums that was listen on the backs of other Blue Note albums and its catalogs. It first saw the light of day in 1976, as part of a Booker Ervin double album (see below for details.) Happily, as the title implies, it has once again been found, and this time, in the form in which it was originally intended.

- MICHAEL CUSCUNA