BLP 4245

Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers - Like Someone In Love

Released - August 1967

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 7, 1960
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.7 Noise In The Attic
tk.10 Sleeping Dancer Sleep On

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 14, 1960 Lee Morgan, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.34 Giantis
tk.42 Johnny's Blues
tk.48 Like Someone In Love

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Like Someone in Love	Burke, Van Heusen	August 14 1960
Johnny's Blue	Lee Morgan	August 14 1960
Side Two
Noise in the Attic	Wayne Shorter	August 7 1960
Sleeping Dancer Sleep On	Wayne Shorter	August 7 1960
Giantis	Wayne Shorter	August 14 1960

Liner Notes

THE drummer-leader quite possibly can be a boor. With the unlimited power given to him as the head of a group and the very nature of his instrument, he is in a position to also be a bore, crashing variety. It is a testimonial to the talent and taste of the many drummer-combo leaders who came to the fore in the Fifties that they hove not abused their privileges.

As one who has successfully led a group for well over a decade Art Blakey has been an outstanding example of a drummer-leader who manages to maintain star status without hogging the spotlight. Never has a drummer been more in evidence while at the some time fully integrated in the overall sound of the bond. Blakey's is a presence that has never merely felt, but strongly as it is felt it never overrides the homogeneity of the unit.

The Jazz Messengers, in all its editions, has always been known as a heated dynamic organization that can fill the air with the blue smoke of its electric charge. The master generator is Blakey. This group is no exception and neither is the set it plays. The fire is there but so is romance and tenderness. In fact, it is in this mood that the album begins with the title tune by Burke and Von Heusen, Like Someone in Love.

After a mood-setting, out-of-tempo introduction by Bobby Timmons, Lee Morgan blows billowing clouds of melody as the rhythm section floats behind him in a relaxed but never flaccid groove. His embellishments as subtle in the first chorus and then he really opens up with a singing, joyous, Brownie-like attack. Timmons eases in with some blithe, right-hand comments before launching into a two-handed chordal style reminiscent of Red Garland, Miles Davis quintet vintage. The Lee returns to lovingly take it out.

Morgan and Timmons ore typical of the talent that has entered the ranks of the Jazz Messengers, developed within the band, and gone on to do important things on their own. Morgan, fresh out of Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, polished his style with the wider solo opportunities offered to him in Blakey's group. His horn began to soar higher, wider and more confidently. Eventually he graduated. As any listener knows who is familiar with his recordings under his own name for Blue Note, Lee graduated cum laude.

Timnons had been with several combos, such as Chet Baker and Kenny Dorham before playing with the Maynard Ferguson band. From there he went to Blakey. Not only did his playing become more fluent and personal but it was within this context that his compositions Moanin' and Dat Dere were first recorded. Eventually Bobby became the leader of his own trio.

Timmons is not represented by any songs in this set but Morgan is. Johnny's Blue is a minor-key blues featuring the mercurial fire of Morgan, some especially strong preaching by Wayne Shorter some more effective contrasting of single-line and chords by Timmons, and a short subdued explosion by Blakey.

Every Messenger group usually has one chief arranger, a musical director who contributes the bulk or the band's repertoire. Horace Silver and Benny Golson served in this capacity. Then it was tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter's turn. Side 2 is devoted exclusively to his compositions. Shorter, like Morgan and Timmons, has since departed the Messengers. More recently he has been heard as a member of the Miles Davis quintet and as a leader on Blue Note. His writing continues to be an important part of his work as it was when he was with Blakey. The three tracks here offer a variety of tempi and mood. They give a clear idea of Wayne's versatility.

Blakey kicking trunks around upstairs begins Noise in the Attic, an uptempo rifer that explodes with a vigorous Morgan solo. Shorter, whose style shows and absorption of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, shows both sides of his background of his portion, starting with the latter and ending with the former. Timmons is fleet, facil and feet-on-the-ground as Jymie Merritt and Blakey pulse strongly behind him. Then it's back up to the attic for some more creative rummaging by Art before the theme is punched into fading submission.

The lovely slow waltz, Sleeping Dancer Sleep on, comes wafting in as tenderly as anything you've ever heard. Morgan is ever so thoughtful as he literally caresses each phrase. Shorter makes excellent use of both registers of his horn and even flys to the moon at one point. Timmons, displaying his fine touch, executes some dazzling pirouettes around the dance floor. Then again the beautiful melody Dancing sleeper, dance on.

Shorter is the forceful opening soloist on Giantis once the theme of this happy, optimistic, medium swinger is completed. A raffish Morgan is next, flashing brassily from all angles. Timmons digs in For some of his hardest playing of the set and Blakey's short but weighty comments lead bock into the chorus.

When Art had to be there, he is really there. And, as I said before, even when he is not being featured you never hove to ask where the beat is. He didn't learn how to play for a group by reading about it in books. The kind of experience that Blakey brings to the drums comes only from years of playing. Some of the experiences have been pretty wild. For instance, take one of his early jobs.

Many musicians start out on instruments totally different from the ones on which they eventually make their reputation. Blakey was playing the piano before he become a drummer. "I used to play by ear," he told me in the course of the interview. "I used to play in five keys and that was it. With me it was a matter of survival. I got married when I was 16, and had a family to support. I was playing in a club at night, and I worked in a steel mill during the day. I didn't know anything about the piano and Erroll Garner come in and took my gig and the band. I ended up being the drummer because a gangster told me - with a 38 - "You hit the drum." And I said 'This is my band. You don't tell me what to do. You crazy’

"You want to work here, kid?, "Sure I want to work here." "You play the drums and don’t argue with me." I went up there and played the drums.

So Art Blakey come close to never leaving that club, let alone his native Pittsburgh. On the other hand, jazz got one of its greatest drummers as is proven on this album. Maybe that hood knew more about music then he let on.

—IRA GITLER

Cover Photo & Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, August 7 & 14 1960

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

While no such indication (or, for that matter, recording dates) graced the cover of the initial LP release, this album is a companion piece to A Night in Tunisia. Both were produced at the same two August 1960 sessions, and together they indicate the wealth of music created by the Morgan/Shorter/Timmons/Merritt edition of the Jazz Messengers at what was roughly the halfway point of its history. As was the case with Tunisia, Like Someone in Love includes four new original compositions and a title composition identified with one of Art Blakey's classic live recordings.

Two of the three Wayne Shorter compositions included here are from the August 7th session. "Noise in the Attic," much more than an excuse for titular wordplay, is a 24-bar A-B-A pattern. Jazz verities and recent innovations blend in the opening section, where stop-time and call-and-response are employed over a mode. Sections recall another opus Shorter crafted for Blakey, "Ping Pong." While some listeners never find a fadeout acceptable, "Noise" is strong evidence that the device has its place. The leader's sneaky comments as the band retreats are just right for this good-natured performance.

The pretty 32-bar waltz "Sleeping Dancer Sleep On" was recorded next. The master and an earlier alternate take survive. It is hard to argue with producer Alfred Lion's choice of the master, given the greater continuity in Morgan's solo and the superior efforts of the others. Shorter, who uses "Fly Me to the Moon" as his point of entry, provides evidence of an affinity for Stan Getz in the first chorus of the master. Timmons always excelled in up tempos and flows here and throughout the date. Horace Silver seems to have momentarily slipped onto the piano bench at the end of the master's first piano chorus.

The remaining tracks were recorded a week later. "Giantis," another Shorter contribution, offers a valuable lesson regarding Blakey the accompanist. While some mistake his power for bombast, Blakey always displayed a keen sense of proportion as both soloist and accompanist. His support of Morgan and Timmons, active yet never overstated, deserves study by some of his more adrenalin-driven disciples, as does the more straightforward approach he adopts behind the composer's vertical exploration of the changes. Blakey's drum solo says its piece quickly and completely in 16 bars. The composition is one example ("Sincerely Diana," heard on A Night in Tunisia, is another) of Shorter's fascination with Tchaikovsky's Opus 42, 3rd movement, which spawned a pop song also included in the Messenger's book of the period, "These are the Things I Love."

Lee Morgan's "Johnny's Blue" sounds familiar, as if the trumpeter had cross-bred his own "The Lion and the Wolff" and Jackie McLean's "Midtown Blues" (both heard on Morgan's Leeway album of a few months earlier). The Latin feeling is abandoned in favor of Blakey's patented back beat after the first trumpet chorus, at which point the performance enters the realm of the sublime. Morgan is stupendous at running lines with great energy and thinking on his feet, as when he extends a seemingly casual quote of "Chicago" over more than a chorus. Shorter, just as inspired, balances his statement somewhere between the hortatory and the downright rude. And would any pianist have been more ideal in this context than Timmons, who comps like a dream and unleashes breathless double-timing before the more funky touches arrive?

"Like Someone in Love," the Burke-Van Heusen standard, is one of several timeless performances heard on the 1955 Café Bohemia recordings by the original Jazz Messengers, and occasioned Blakey's priceless introductory line, "At this point ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to play for you...anything groovy." There are allusions to the Bohemia arrangement in the vamp that introduces the melody, but the pedal-point figure that broke up each chorus so effectively is dropped and a rubato piano introduction has been added. This is a sensitive performance featuring trumpet and drums (no Shorter solo), though not up to the inspired invention provided by Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, and Horace Silver on the earlier recording.

While live versions of "Noise in the Attic" exist, there is no indication that the other originals here became a part of the Messengers' regular repertoire. Rather than an indictment of the quality of "Sleeping Dancer" and the others, consider their absence an indication of how much quality writing was at the disposal of one of the greatest editions of one of jazz's greatest bands.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2004