BLP 4214

Blue Mitchell - Down With It!

Released - April 1966

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 14, 1965
Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Junior Cook, tenor sax; Chick Corea, piano; Gene Taylor, bass; Al Foster, drums.

1635 tk.2 Samba De Stacy
1636 tk.5 Hi Heel Sneakers
1637 tk.7 Alone, Alone And Alone
1638 tk.9 Perception
1640 tk.25 March On Selma
1639 tk.32 One Shirt

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Hi-Heel Sneakers	Robert Higginbotham	July 14 1965
Perception	Chick Corea, Blue Mitchell	July 14 1965
Alone, Alone, and Alone	Terumasa Hino	July 14 1965
Side Two
March on Selma	Blue Mitchell	July 14 1965
One Shirt	William Boone	July 14 1965
Samba de Stacy	William Boone	July 14 1965

Liner Notes

Of late, a certain dangerous myth has sprung up around this country's most original and underrated art form. It is that jazz, in order to be good, must be separate, exclusive, and decidedly inaccessible, except to those few who approach it with a mystic's vague abstraction. This brand of thinking has been perpetrated by a cerebral cult that has all but analyzed the life out of the music and tended to downgrade a musician once he has made the mistake of becoming too popular.

Perhaps this development is nothing more than a natural reaction to the traditional disdain with which jazz was treated during all those years when no one cared to identify with it, when its supposed distance from formal European music deemed it "low-brow." But now that the academicians (at least a handful of them) have stamped it with a tenuous approval, and the brilliance of its leading lights has been applauded from abroad, the New Snobbery has set in. Heavy lines have been drawn between this type and that type of jazz, all of them being arranged on tables and weighted with varying degrees of importance based on relative obscurity. Artificial walls have been constructed around it, and the audience for this vital and captivating music has failed to expand at the proper rate, due to the alienation of many pop- oriented potential listeners who if only they could would dig it, squeeze their way post the "Top Forty." (We can thank most of the nation's radio stations for this sad situation.)

Fortunately, the music has continued to thrive, far from the hue and cry created around it, and there remain enough eager listeners who refuse to be frightened away by all of the bugaboo, selecting their sound with open minds and uncluttered ears.

Yet, it's about time someone started extolling those whose music can readily reach a great many people, easily enveloping them in its warm spirit, inciting them to spells of foot-tapping and finger-popping.

Such a musician is Blue Mitchell, who as trumpeter and leader produces jazz that is ultimately infectious, fully flavored soul," and "swing, with "funk, but devoid of all pretentiousness. His ability to establish an immediate rapport with those on the other side of the stage is understandable when his background is considered.

Since he pulled out from his native Florida, as a member of the Paul Williams aggregation, Blue has learned the "ins" and "outs" of pleasing people by working with a wide variety of musical outfits. Certainly the three years he spent as a stalwart of Earl Bostic's band back in the early fifties had a profound influence on the formation of his style. This earthy approach was enhanced by a stint on the road with a show headlined by Arthur Prysock, Sarah Vaughan, and Al Hibbler. And in between, he paid his dues by playing virtually everything from rock 'n roll to hard bop.

Blue's first actual jazz recording date came back in 1952 when he was called into a set led by Lou Donaldson, featuring Art Blakey, Percy Heath, and Horace Silver. Just about everyone knows what happened after that. Blue spent seven solid, highly productive years with Silver in what became one of the swingingest combos of all time. It was then that he developed strong musical ties with the group's tenor saxophonist, Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor, and drummer Roy Brooks. When Silver disbanded his quintet in early 1964 to form another, Blue stepped up to lead his own group. It was a natural since he, Cook, Taylor, and Brooks had been making their own gigs on off-nights, even while working with Silver. Shortly afterwards, Brooks become ill, and a fine replacement was found in the person of Al Foster, a young drummer who had been making the scene with several of the more promising performers of the coming generation.

"We all know that Al Foster has proved to be a real boon on drums," says Blue, recalling the synthesis of his group, "and we consider ourselves lucky to have gotten Chick Corea for piano, as anyone might know who is familiar with his work."

After having been identified for so long with a forceful musical personality like Horace Silver, Blue Mitchell was faced with the formidable problem of carving a sound and image of his own. His group's first waxing, The Thing to Do (Blue Note 4178), left no doubt that he and his cohorts were capable of stretching out in their own right. But this, their second set, is the fruition of a promise indicated in their previous set. Even Blue admits to a great improvement. "We're more together," 'and he readily comments, have a stronger sense of unity in performance.

Much of this has come about as a result of the experience they've gained in polishing their numbers before audiences at Minton's in Manhattan, Lennie's on the Turnpike in Boston, the Crawford Grill in Pittsburgh, and other standard jazz houses. So, it is, that everything on this disc has been tried, tested, and is certain to satisfy. Furthermore, the material is rich in melody, rhythm, and imagination.

A real surprise is in store for all from the offset, namely, Blue's refreshing treatment of "Hi-Heel Sneakers," a rhythm and blues jukebox hit that he has reworked in his own way. "I heard it done by a local singing group one night in Pittsburgh," says Blue, "and I liked the basic feeling of it. Right then I decided to do something with it." The feeling is one of light-hearted abandon, as Blue and Cook sail out over the driving drum accents of Foster, while Corea injects scintillating blues riffs.

Pittsburgh, which is this scribe's old habitat, seems to have an inspirational effect on Blue, for it was also instrumental in his conception of "Perception," the Latin-flavored second track. "I wrote out the melody in a hotel room in that town," Blue recalls. "Later I showed it to Chick and he just sat right down and filled in all the chords. They were so right, and we just played it right off like that, with no trouble."

The lovely ballad "Alone, Alone, and Alone," was given to Blue by a Japanese trumpeter named Hino during a trip to Tokyo in early 1965. Since then, it has become a treasured item in the group's book. "They were having these afternoon jazz sessions over there," says Blue, "and it was a wonderful thing, because the Japanese people reacted very warmly. Maybe they appreciate the music more because they don't have many opportunities to hear it. Anyway, one of the sets featured Hino on trumpet, along with his brother on drums. He's a very good young cat, and they played this number. When I told Hino how much I liked it, he let me have it to bring back here. Now we're trying to find out what happened to him.' Most remarkable is Blue's solo on this pensive poem of stifled yearning, and the subtle backing of Cook, Corea, Taylor, and Foster.

"March on Selma, Blue's second contribution as composer, bears no actual tie to the civil rights movement, but can simply be dug because it's such a catchy lick. It is highlighted by a brief but ingenious statement of the "Spontaneous Combustion" theme, a la Brother Adderley.

Rounding out the set are two South American-colored cookers by William Boone, a pianist who happens to be an old friend of Blue's from his Miami days. "One Shirt" serves as a showcase for the roughy, virile sax of Junior Cook, while "Samba de Stacy" harkens back to the bossa nova groove which had its own merits, though too many tried to run it into the ground.

No need is there to ramble further in fruitless attempts to explain the music. Dig it for yourself.

— Phyl Garland

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes[edit]

A NEW LOOK AT DOWN WITH IT!

Among the most frequently lamented changes in the jazz world have been the demise of the nightclub circuit and the concomitant reduction in the number of working bands. The clubs that dotted urban America, and the week-long stands that they afforded, kept many groups afloat, allowing younger sidemen opportunities to mature and bandleaders the chance to develop a distinctive sound. Such was the case with the present quintet, which recorded under Blue Mitchell's name yet often appeared under the co-leadership of the trumpeter and tenor saxophonist Junior Cook. Down with It! was recorded nearly a year after the band's first album, The Thing to Do, and as Phyl Garland's original liner notes indicate, the quintet had spent a significant portion of the intervening time on the road. The work may have reduced Mitchell's profile on recordings (his only studio appearance during that stretch was on organist John Patton's Oh Baby!, recorded in March 1965), but it most definitely allowed the quintet to refine its approach. And a populist approach it was, with a few challenging wrinkles amidst a solid core of blues and swing.

"Hi-Heel Sneakers," a huge hit of the time for one Tommy Tucker, was clearly arranged to raise images of Lee Morgan's successful "The Sidewinder." Mitchell even cops a few of Morgan's phrases over Cook's supporting riff, though his approach had little in common with the more bravura gestures of the younger trumpeter. Corea works a nice harmonic substitution into bars 15-16 of his first chorus, but sounds grounded by the material as well. Cook is the best of the soloists, yet the performance is most notable as an example of how a band can keep attention from wandering through quick rhythm section punctuations (as each solo ends), and a closing trumpet/tenor conversation that deceptively suggests a fade.

"Perception," which, like the rest of the album, is more substantial, captures the sultry minor mood that Mitchell, Cook, and Taylor mined with regularity and great success in their years with Horace Silver. The distinctive opening phrase turns into an echo of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." In addition to strong solos from the horns and Corea, Al Foster offers excellent support, especially behind Cook.

The "Japanese trumpeter named Hino" who gave his composition "Alone, Alone, and Alone" to Mitchell was Terumasa Hino, who would go on to record the piece several times, including on his own 1989 Blue Note album Bluestruck. Despite the modern character of the ballad, it possesses an undisguised sensitivity that plays right into Mitchell's interpretive strengths. Cook also excels here, employing short crying phrases that, notwithstanding their less urgent tone, recall Coltrane; and Corea provides both empathetic support and 16 bars of solo piano that underscore his love of Coltrane's pianist, McCoy Tyner. Mitchell's return is a lovely optimistic moment, and before he concludes the piece there is an ensemble crescendo that is another sign of the band's togetherness.

The shuffle blues "March on Selma" sounds more like party music than a civil rights anthem, and suggests a happier version of Kenny Dorham's "Blue Spring". The tempo rushes a bit behind Cook, but settles once Mitchell enters and Corea's support grows more fervent. The suggestion of "Spontaneous Combustion" is most fitting, given that the Adderleys were friends of Mitchell's in the trumpeter's native Florida. William Boone, composer of the final two tracks, also contributed a pair of pieces to Mitchell's 1958 debut recording on Riverside, Big Six. "One Shirt" is a 20-bar composition with a distinctive structure of eight bars on one chord, eight bars with active harmonic movement, and four bars of blues changes to resolve the sequence. One might call the results a foreshortened long-meter blues. To make the choruses of exchanges work, Mitchell and Cook each take eight bars and give Foster twelve. The drummer has said that Cook asked him for "more Elvin" on this track, and he lets the polyrhythms fly without overplaying.

"Samba de Stacy" is hard-bop bossa nova, with melodic suggestions of "Manha de Carnival" and Lee Morgan's "Ceora." There is great similarity here to the Morgan opus, which was recorded two months later, thanks in part to the more enveloping spread of Foster's cymbals (å la Billy Higgins) and Cook's suggestions of another of his saxophone models, Hank Mobley. Amidst the wonderful rhythm section work here and throughout, we should pause to appreciate the fluent contribution of Gene Taylor, who takes nary a solo, but has much to say in support.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2005