BLP 4153

Grachan Moncur III - Evolution

Released - March 1964

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 21, 1963
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Grachan Moncur III, trombone; Jackie McLean, alto sax; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Anthony Williams, drums.

tk.11 Monk In Wonderland
tk.12 The Coaster
tk.14 Evolution
tk.17 Air Raid

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Air Raid	Grachan Moncur III	21 November 1963
Evolution	Grachan Moncur III	21 November 1963
Side Two
The Coaster	Grachan Moncur III	21 November 1963
Monk in Wonderland	Grachan Moncur III	21 November 1963

Liner Notes

My initial reaction to this record — the first representation on LP of Grachan Moncur's work as composer and leader — was surprise. I'd expected to hear a hip, hard-bopping, J. J. Johnson-esque trombonist leading a band with a like bent thru tunes as familiar as the IND subway line, but what I got was a serious and courageous date composed out of an audacious interest in the more open methods of solo and group improvisation, in the kind of playing that's already been declared anathema by the more conservative factions of the jazz world. Grachan Moncur is certainly hip, his blowing's often hard, and he has a declared affinity for J. J. Johnson, but he is far, far ahead of the mainstream of post-Johnson trombonists. I'd say that Grachan Moncur, on the basis of this record, and Roswell Rudd have it all to themselves in the area of avant-garde jazz trombone, but then, I may be in for more surprises like this one; I certainly hope so.

Grachan Moncur is a 26-year-old from New York City, Newark, N.J., and points south who, at this juncture in his career, could probably best be described as an established comer on his instrument, tho the same might be said of all the other musicians on this date excepting Lee Morgan and Jackie McLean, who, tho young, "made it" long ago. Men like Moncur, Hutcherson, Williams, and Cranshaw are part of what I have called the second wave of the avant-garde in that they, with such radicals from the preceding generation as Jackie McLean and John Coltrane, form a bridge between the outcast revolutionists and the mainstream. Their ears are wide open; they are technically prepared to execute the most demanding and abstract parts; their professional and social involvement with more traditional musicians keeps their historic reference in front of them, but their interest in what can be done in musical self-assertion forces them to constantly alter the rules, which is about the most commercially dangerous thing a musician can do; and, best of all, because so many of the more talented young musicians are falling in with them, they are undeniable.

In talking to Grachan, the recurring subjects which struck me most were a profound dissatisfaction with the accepted forms of brass playing and writing, and the exchange of ideas that occurs between the aforementioned more adventurous musicians of his generation. Moncur seemed constantly to talk more about what he intended to do than about what he had done. He hears a piece for brass and reeds, with no drum and no piano, in which the chord and the beat would be implicit in the writing and rendition of the tune, intrinsically implied in the horns, and nowhere else manifest, thus giving each man a greater freedom and a greater responsibility to the group.

Otherwise, he wanted to make it clear that he had worked, practiced, and talked so intimately so often with all the musicians on this record and with some not represented here that he didn't want credit for all the ideas included herein. E.g., he wanted to be certain that pianist Herbie Hancock was given credit for scoring the first two bars of the vibe accompaniment of "Monk in Wonderland," and that Bobby Hutcherson was mentioned as the writer of the final changes of the solos of that tune. Likewise, he "talked to Tony [Williams] a lot about time, he's got a lot of very advanced ideas about that. Talking to Tony about time, about his instrument in general, has given me a lot of ideas about playing my horn and about composing, too." Thus an intelligent young pianist becomes an instructive orchestra (Grachan often takes his tunes to Hancock's to try them out) for the composer, and an even younger drummer, by his own inquisitiveness, extends the composer's ear for sequence and cadence.

Further, "Bob Cranshaw and Lee Morgan and Jackie McLean, I've known them all for a long time, and I've played with them all so many times, I feel we all really understand each other's music. I'm happy about the way everybody played on this date. It was a damn good session, really, and I don't think anybody could have contributed more."

Grachan Moncur is from what they call a musical family. His father, Grachan (Brother) Moncur II, led a swing-style band in Newark and New York called Brother Moncur and His Strollers. I say "led" because I don't know if they're still functioning. They may very well still be. Before he formed The Strollers, Brother Moncur was the bassist with the Savoy Sultans, an important swing band of the '30s. Grachan III was born in New York City in 1937, went to grade school there, and then, while his family moved to Newark, attended high school at Laurinburg Institute in Laurinburg, NC, at that time (it may still be) one of the better private schools for Negroes in the country.

Laurinburg was known for its music department, and it was there that Grachan started his first serious experiments with jazz at the "advanced" age of 13. "The music department attracted a lot of guys who knew music, and a lot of us were interested in playing jazz. We used to come up to The City in the summer to hear what the older cats were doing and then take it back down to the country to practice all winter."

Immediately after graduating from Laurinburg, Grachan went to work in what must've been one of the great teenage bands of all times, the Nat Phipps Band in Newark. This band included, among others, Wayne Shorter, and everybody in it had his bebop together. "Working in Nat's band, besides being an honor for us kids, was a great experience for me. Everybody in that band could play, everybody could read, and everybody knew his music. I half expected everybody to make it big."

He thought he could make life easier for himself by adding more degrees to his name. To this end, he attended the Manhattan School of Music briefly and then Juilliard, but in each case had to withdraw because of a lack of funds. "I thought I could save myself a lot of experimentation by getting more training. Well, now I know you have to keep finding new things out, anyway. But I'd still like to study privately."

After Nat Phipps came the Ray Charles Band, which at that time included tenor saxophonist Hank Crawford, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, and baritone saxophonist Leroy Cooper. The job lasted two-and-a-half years and, tho it kept him from the kind of spotlight exposure that leads to leading your own band, Grachan feels the experience was eminently useful. "Every time, every minute you're playing your horn, you're learning something." Inactivity is the performing artists' worst enemy.

Then came the Jazztet, where Moncur replaced Thomas McIntosh. He stayed with that group until it disbanded, went back to Ray Charles for six months, and finally decided it was time to try it as a single in New York. At this writing, Grachan works off and on at clubs in and around New York with Jackie McLean and/or Herbie Hancock, either as a leader or as a sideman. All of which finds fruition in this fine, appropriately-titled first record, which places six accomplished and imaginative musicians at a point in time in which the only direction for musicians who care about their music is to go forward toward a personalized approach to solo and group playing that requires each performer to lend the most alert ear to what each of the other performers is doing. To this end, Grachan selected men whom he knew personally and professionally. In so doing, perhaps because of the con-fraternity of young musicians in New York, he's come up with a group of the very highest calibre. Bobby Hutcherson, a subtle and witty vibist, perhaps the most interesting man to come along on his instrument in the last five years; Bob Cranshaw, a strong and imaginative bassist who achieved some prominence with the steamrolling Sonny Rollins Quartet; Anthony Williams, a startlingly accomplished young drummer from Boston who has already been used extensively by Miles Davis; Lee Morgan and Jackie tv4cLean, of whom I'll just say that their playing on this date is remarkable, even for them.

As for the tunes, they were all written by Grachan; one of them, "Evolution," was even conducted by him. Grachan says, "I used only whole notes in 'Evolution.' I wanted the melody and the rhythm to be one thing, so I tried to keep the time as much in the horns as in the drums. By the title I meant to suggest the beginning of a change in mankind."

Of "Monk in Wonderland": "Most of the accomplished musicians today have come thru Monk, I know he's been a good guide for me in rhythm and in learning to listen generally. Notice the shift from 3/4 to 4/4 in the solos; the pulse stays the same while the beat changes. That's the way Monk plays."

Of "The Coaster": "l was thinking of the coaster at Coney Island. The idea was to play as if you were coasting."

Of "Air Raid": '"This makes a picture for me. Everybody was swinging, everybody meant what they played."

And that's about it.

— A. B. Spellman

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT EVOLUTION

There would be other important recordings in Grachan Moncur's future, including others with Jackie McLean; but the present music, the first to be released under Moncur's name, has earned a permanent place in jazz history as the third of three exceptional collections created by the ensemble that McLean led during 1963. All three albums feature the alto saxophonist, Moncur, and vibist Bobby Hutcherson, the core members of McLean's quintet; and two of the three include McLean's precocious drum discovery, who at the time still preferred to be known as Anthony Williams.

Identifying an album under Moncur's name as part of a McLean cycle is hardly a stretch, given the personnel and the significant presence of the trombonist's compositions on the earlier volumes (two out of four tunes on One Step Beyond, three of four on Destination Out); and, indeed, it is as a composer that Moncur made his greatest impact. His writing occupies a middle space between what represented traditional modernism at the time and the greater freedoms to come, where scales and modes replaced rapidly modulating chords and thematic material established mood rather than dictating structural patterns.

"The Coaster" is the most conventional of the titles, a theme-and-bridge modal opus that was becoming as de rigueur at the time as "Rhythm" changes had been for the boppers, albeit in this case with the elongated bridge that Miles Davis had used in the title track from his Milestones album; and "Monk in Wonderland" is a brilliant homage, beginning with a melody that hints at a Monk tune ("Played Twice," perhaps?) before introducing meter changes and asymmetric phrases that move the music into territory that is more personal. If Moncur had a single trademark as a composer at this point, however, it was his willingness to put improvisers in situations where the beat slows to a virtual halt. He had done it on "Ghost Town" from Beyond, and on "Love and Hate" on Out, and he does it here on the front of each "Air Raid" chorus and throughout the title track. The approach produces music of stunning drama in each' instance, helped in no small measure here (and on "Ghost Town") by Williams's recognition that the beat could not just breathe, but breathe very slowly.

Moncur the trombonist makes an impression as well, with a dark and resonant sound that is immediately identifiable, and a penchant for the most interesting harmonic choices. His solos take a back seat, however, to those of his fellow horn players, who are simply spectacular throughout. McLean, who first played with Moncur in 1957, was in the midst of a stylistic epiphany that he describes in his liner notes of the time (on Let Freedom Ring, as well as the two prior albums with Moncur). Pushed to stretch himself beyond the strategies that worked so well on sessions such as Freddie Redd's Music from The Connection, McLean cries and moans here, both through his horn and vocally between phrases, adding more raw heat to what was already one of the most visceral sounds in jazz.

If these more open-ended settings were growing familiar to McLean by late-1963, they remained virgin territory for Lee Morgan. Things had not gone well for the trumpeter in the two years since he had left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. A virtual fixture at Rudy Van Gelder's in his early years, Morgan had made only one studio appearance between his June '61 Messengers swan song and his supporting role on Hank Mobley's No Room for Squares date of October '63. None of his previous work could be even vaguely considered avant-garde, which makes his contribution here that much more astounding. Totally in tune with the environment (particularly in his subtle baton-grab of the solo spotlight on "Air Raid"), he allows the deep feeling and diverse attacks of his early work to carry him through. His connection with Williams (they jab at each other like skilled middleweights on "The Coaster") makes it all the sadder that this was the only time Morgan and the drummer met on record.

In addition to Williams, three weeks shy of his 18th birthday at this point and already a six-month veteran of the Miles Davis quintet, the rest of the rhythm section also deserves kudos. Hutcherson, who Moncur had suggested to serve in place of a pianist in the McLean quintet, fell right into the trombonist's concepts, and offered ideas during his "Evolution" solo that anticipate not just freer improvising realms, but also where young composers like Steve Reich were headed. As for Bob Cranshaw, isn't it long past time that his ability to sound right regardless of context receives its due? Cranshaw was the perfect bassist when he assisted Morgan exactly one month later in creating the soul classic The Sidewinder; and, whether plucking or using the bow, he is the perfect bassist here.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2008