BLP 4188

Donald Byrd - I'm Tryin' To Get Home

Released - February 1965

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 17, 1964
Jimmy Owens, Ernie Royal, Clark Terry, Snooky Young, trumpet; Donald Byrd, trumpet, flugelhorn; Jimmy Cleveland, Henry Cocker, J.J. Johnson, Benny Powell, trombone; Jim Buffington, Bob Northern, French horn; Don Butterfield, tuba; Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; Herbie Hancock, piano; Freddie Roach, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Grady Tate, drums; unidentified vocal chorus, Coleridge Perkinson, director, conductor; Duke Pearson, arranger.

1493 tk.3 I'm Tryin' To Get Home
1494 tk.5 March Children
1495 tk.11 Brother Isaac

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 18, 1964
Joe Ferrante, Jimmy Owens, Ernie Royal, Snooky Young, trumpet; Donald Byrd, trumpet, flugelhorn; Jimmy Cleveland, Henry Cocker, J.J. Johnson, Benny Powell, trombone; Jim Buffington, Bob Northern, French horn; Don Butterfield, tuba; Herbie Hancock, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Grady Tate, drums; unknown, chimes, percussion, tambourine, tubular bells; unidentified vocal chorus, Coleridge Perkinson, director, conductor; Duke Pearson, arranger.

1496 tk.17 I've Longed And Searched For My Mother
1497 tk.20 Noah
1498 tk.26 Pearly Gates

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Brother Isaac	Donald Byrd	December 17 1964
Noah	Donald Byrd	December 18 1964
I'm Tryin' to Get Home	Donald Byrd	December 17 1964
Side Two
I've Longed and Searched for My Mother	Donald Byrd	December 17 1964
March Children	Donald Byrd	December 17 1964
Pearly Gates	Donald Byrd	December 18 1964

Liner Notes

THE GOAL of any jazzman is to find and be himself in his music. Not everyone makes it, of course. Some get caught in various "bags" and never discover the full scope of their capacities. Others never get a penetratingly clear sense of themselves, and so their music is an eclectic fusion of influences and stabs at self-assertion. A few, however, achieve self-recognition and also are never satisfied at where they are at any given point. They keep growing, and as they grow, their music does. Donald Byrd is a particularly intriguing illustration of this kind of self-explorer, and I would say without reservation that this is the most arresting album he has yet made in his wide-ranging odyssey.

The album is an extension of A New Perspective (BLUE NOTE 4124) in which Donald was heard with voices along with a jazz group. It was a striking departure for him and was well received by a broad spectrum of musicians, critics and non-professional listeners. A New Perspective was a substantial album; and this one, I'm Tryin' To Get Home, in which a brass team is added to the voices and to the basic jazz combo is a further advance in Byrd's work as writer and performer. Three of the numbers were composed and arranged by Donald. I have never before heard voices utilized in a jazz context so exhilarating and with such variegated imaginativeness. Because of his special skills, Coleridge Perkinson was again selected by Donald to take a major role in the proceedings. Perkinson brought his own choir and this time he not only directed the voices but conducted the full instrumental and vocal ensemble.

"The voices," Donald points out, "play a larger part in this album than they did in A New Perspective." As Donald became more secure in his knowledge of vocal writing, he placed greater demands on the singers and gave them more challenging material. Another aspect of this album is underlined by Duke Pearson, who wrote and arranged three of the numbers. "The set," says Duke, "is fundamentally Donald's in terms of its basic conception. And like Donald, the music is neither restricted to the 'soul' bag nor is it straining to be avant-garde. It is not categorizable except within its own framework and intent. And that intent was to apply whatever devices worked to make maximum emotional use of the material and the instrumental and vocal resources at hand."

First is Brother Isaac by Donald. The song is about a relative of Donald whose name is Isaac and who gave Donald his middle name, Toussaint L'Ouverture (the Haitian Negro liberator and martyr). Isaac is religious, and Donald's father was a Methodist minister. In that previous album with voices, A New Perspective, Donald wrote a number, Elijah, named after his father. Here again, in Brother Isaac, Donald fuses memories of religious music and memories of his family. The music is a mixture of respect and rebellion. "When I was young, Donald recalls, "people would constantly ask me if I wanted to be like my father, and I'd say, 'No'." Accordingly, there was a degree of affectionate satire in that first album and there is some too in Brother Isaac, "The last lime I was home," says Donald, "there were comments about that satire and about how my late father would have laughed. I told Isaac he was next."

The performance, beginning with the bright, bold, antiphonal use of the voices, gathers growing momentum through the rhythm section and the powerful brass. Donald "preaches" a driving, crackling solo, and Stanley Turrentine also "talks" through a hot, blistering but firmly controlled statement. The voices are incisive, ebullient and highly sensitized to the surrounding textures. And the close suggests the fulfillment of release after the tension of spiraling joy.

Noah by Duke Pearson was written before it was titled. 'The music," says Pearson, "seemed to me to connote a journey. And I was very pleased with the way it worked out on the session. In this particular number, the voices are underneath the band and the effect is flowing — like a sea of grass." Pearson's theme is sweepingly lyrical, and Donald's solo is a brilliantly evocative blending of venturesomeness and yearning. Throughout the album, the interplay between the voices and the various orchestral elements is continually absorbing, and an especially stimulating case in point is contained in the trialogue in Noah, following Donald's first solo, between him, the voices and the brass. Actually, it's a four-part conversation because of the commentary by the rhythm section. For this listener, this track — one of the high points of an extraordinary album — has the feeling of an irresistible tide, of a spirit that will not be fettered.

I'm Tryin' To Get Home by Donald is also satirical in thrust. "That "is used quite often in church, but I expression," Donald observes, didn't think of it as a title for a number until one night in Philadelphia, while on the street, I began to conceive this song. A drunk stopped me, asked me for a cigarette, and I gave him one. Then he said to me, 'I'm tryin' to get home.' It hit me instantly that what he had just said had the same rhythm as the song's basic motif. And I also remembered the use of that same phrase in church."

The line is burstingly bright, and as throughout, everyone — singers — are both precise and yet emotionally loose and instrumentalists inside. The calliope-like organ sound of Freddie Roach fits the pungency of the scene; and because Roach is so lithe and resilient an organist, he can move dartingly in support of the voices without muddying or otherwise obscuring them. Once more, Donald and Stanley Turrentine are forcefully expressive soloists with sustainedly cooking accompaniment from the rhythm and from that exceptionally well integrated and buoyantly propulsive company of brass.

I've Longed And Searched For My Mother is also Donald's. "It was written," he points out, "in memory of my mother, Cornelia, who died shortly after my father. She was a very religious woman. Part of the feeling of the song is allied to the fact that, for various reasons, I was not able to attend the funerals of either my father or mother. Yet they will always be alive to me somewhere, and that too is what the song is about. The bells are for the funeral of my mother which I didn't attend. The song is like Elijah in A New Perspective in that it's traditional hymn in the Negro idiom."

Donald, who is persistently self-critical about his work, feels this is one of the best compositions he's written so far and also that performance did achieve the intensity and complexity of feeling for which he had aimed. I've Longed And Searched For My Mother achieves a compelling unity — the dark brass; the voices of sorrow with plangent brass punctuation; the warm, searching fluegelhorn Donald; the astringent dissonances of the brass as the yearning goes deeper; the intertwining intensity of the single voice and the fluegelhorn; the final dissonances of the brass; and the funeral bells at the close.

March Children by Duke Pearson has no religious significance, according to the composer. "It's a blues," Duke points out, "with a melody that has a march effect." Strutting, high-spirited, the voices exult here. There is also a lusty, bedrock piano solo by Herbie Hancock with organ commentary that sounds like its own small chorus. Donald's solo builds with burnished assurance, and this album as a whole should certainly call attention to the disciplined maturity of Donald's trumpet playing at this stage in his continuing growth. Stanley Turrentine is also heard again, and I have never heard Turrentine so wholly effective and in such complete control of his material as he is in this album. Stanley is always consistent, but the nature of this session seems to have been particularly well suited to his way of feeling and shaping music. The brass section, which is superbly expressive throughout the album, is especially brilliant in March Children in both rhythmic and coloristic terms.

Pearly Gates is a happy piece, depicting, says Duke Pearson, its composer, "people trying to get into heaven." The song seems to start in mid-flight, so swingingly kinetic is the opening. It is a concise conclusion to the album because it distills the vitality, the fullness of emotion and the pride in collective accomplishment that characterize the set in its entirety.

"The feeling on the date," Duke Pearson recalls, "was especially cheerful, and the eagerness to play grew with every tune. Noah and March Children were each done on the first take, which indicates the spirit of the occasion. And Donald was remarkable all the way. He's always been a sparkling trumpet player - playing with lightness and yet fire, with delicacy and yet strength. He's like a dancer. Here he was as deep as the music required and also as soaring as it required."

As for Donald, he summarizes his feelings about the proceedings by emphasizing: "I was inspired by everyone. By such a marvelous brass team, by the rhythm and by the moral support of Alfred Lion, Frank Wolff, Duke Pearson, Coleridge Perkinson and Herbie Hancock. And Stanley Turrentine — he was just right for what the music needed."

Donald meanwhile continues to search. He has begun studying Spanish music because he feels there are emotional similarities with jazz in the marrow of that music. He is also studying classical music further — now with conductor-theoretician-composer René Leibowitz. Donald is also writing a composition for the Detroit Symphony and for an orchestra in Basel, Switzerland. Concurrently, he is studying French and reading widely in the history and sociology of the Negro. He is a man of many parts and of many interests and they coalesce with singular impact of personality in his music. Particularly in this collection which, I believe, marks a significant new stage of development in Donald Byrd's work.

NAT HENTOFF

75th Anniversary CD Reissue Notes

Donald Byrd's "A New Perspective" was a stunning success, artistically and commercially. The album, arranged by Duke Pearson, used a jazz septet and vocal choir conducted by Coleridge Perkinson to fuse a true marriage of jazz sensibilities and choral gospel music. Pearson's two originals - "Christo Redentor" and "Chant" - were drivers that gave the album its popularity.

As an independent label, Blue Note rarely recorded a group larger than eight pieces; in fact most were quintets or quartets. But "A New Perspective" proved successful enough that almost two years later, Donald Byrd, Duke Pearson, Alfred Lion and Coleridge Perkinson reconvened at Rudy Van Gelder's studio for "I'm Tryin' To Get Home." This time everything was bigger. Freddie Roach's organ replaced the vibes in the septet and an eleven-piece brass section was added. To add to the cost, the album was recorded over two days instead of the usual one day.

The brass and the larger ensemble gave the music a great deal more weight than the airy sound of "A New Perspective." In this new musical setting, the choir took on a larger and more forceful role. Despite "Brother Isaac" and "I've Longed And Searched For My Mother" getting considerable radio play, this album never caught on in the way "A New Perspective" did.

Over the next couple of years, Blue Note limited their large ensemble projects to Oliver Nelson-arranged albums by Stanley Turrentine and Lee Morgan.

- MICHAEL CUSCUNA