BLP 4259

Donald Byrd - Blackjack

Released - March 1968

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 9, 1967
Donald Byrd, trumpet; Sonny Red, alto sax; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Cedar Walton, piano; Walter Booker, bass; Billy Higgins, drums.

1810 tk.5 Loki
1811 tk.9 Eldorado
1812 tk.10 West Of The Pecos
1814 tk.28 Beale Street
1813 tk.29 Blackjack
1815 tk.33 Pentatonic

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Blackjack	Donald Byrd	January 9 1967
West of Pecos	Sonny Red	January 9 1967
Loki	Sonny Red	January 9 1967
Side Two
Eldorado	Mitch Farber	January 9 1967
Beale Street	Sonny Red	January 9 1967
Pentatonic	Donald Byrd	January 9 1967

Liner Notes

IDEALLY — although there have been many notable exceptions — jazz recordings have particular strength if they’re made by a group that has been together tor a period of time and has gotten into the material before they came to the studio. In this instance, for example, Dona!d Byrd heads a combo with which he had been working at the Five Spot in New York at the end of 1966. The session was made toward the close of that gig. Moreover, the choice of tunes represents a collective decision by the band. They chose what they most liked in the book. And that’s why this session is so “together” — musically and in spirit.

Donald Byrd’s Blackjack was written for an entertainer in Paris who was visiting New York during the time of the engagement at the Five Spot. “Blackjack” is Donald’s nickname for her. “Underneath,” says Donald, “the idea for the rhythm came from a performance I’d heard by Joe Williams and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band of Get Out of My Life, Woman. I sort of turned that beat around, and the top part has a light, Monkish type of feeling. You know that dance Monk does when he’s listening to his music? The last two beats of the melodic pattern here go exactly with that dance.” The feeling is loose and infectiously buoyant. Sonny Red practically talks his story, displaying in the process one of the surest senses of swing in jazz. Donald is characteristically crisp, cohesive, and he too has that human “cry” in his horn. The redoubtable Hank Mobley sustains the aura of powerful ease, as does the incisive Cedar Walton.

West of the Pecos is by Sylvester Kyrier (Sonny Red). “You know,” Donald Byrd points out, “Sonny and I met in the eighth grade in Detroit. He was one of the people instrumental in my starting to play jazz.” An admirer of Sonny’s writing as well as of his playing, Donald notes that, in a fanciful sense, this brisk Western canter is based on Tumbling Tumbieweeds. “But what came out,” Donald adds, “is entirely, energetically Sonny.” Donald, Sonny, Hank and Cedar accept and enjoy the challenge of the swift tempo and the sinewy line.

Loki is another Sonny Red tune. “You listen to his work,” says Donald. “like this song and Mustang, arid it’s clear how definite a talent Sonny has as a tune writer. He has a real knack for writing strong, firm melodies. In that respect, he reminds me of Herbie Hancock as a writer. This man has been so underrated, both as a player and composer. And his playing, like on this record, continues to grow upward and outward.” After a jaunty Sonny Red solo in Loki, Donald again illustrates his consistent command of improvisatory form. As for Hank Mobley, “he is to me just as much a personality as Sonny Rollins,” Donald observes. “I mean he has so definitely established his own sound and style.” Of Cedar Walton, who follows Mobley on this track, Donald notes; “He’s in the same category as Sonny in that he’s an excellent musician who has been playing a supporting role and has never really come into his own in terms of public renown as a musician and writer. Cedar has fantastic technique. Just to watch his hands is fascinating. You can see the strength in those hands, and the sounds match it.”

Eldorado was written some years ago by Mitchell Farber, a New Yorker who was a student of Donald at a Stan Kenton Band Clinic at Michigan State. “I’ve always liked this song,” says, Donald. “It’s reminiscent of a Miles Davis-Gil Evans-Bill Evans feeling, but it very much has its own character. Everytime we played the song, all the musicians in the band were fascinated by it. It’s very relaxing and yet liberating too. The triadic effect against a basic pedal point is very interesting and the simplicity of the tune—there are basically only two chords in it—gives you freedom to really stretch out and do what you want. All in all, it creates a hell of a mood.” As Donald and his colleagues demonstrate here. Everybody, I expect, has his own vision of Eldorado, a land of treasure and other fabulous delights. This is the kind of performance which stimulates that kind of fantasy. The order of soloists is Donald, Hank Mobley, Sonny Red and Cedar Walton.

Beale Street is Sonny Red’s. “It has,” says Donald “the kind of down-home feeling that was characteristic of Mustang.” Earthy, easy-rolling, it’s a tune that makes your body move. And it’s a tune that propels the soloists, starting with Hank Mobley, to get into basics. Note the intriguingly personal contours of Sonny Red’s statement. As was observed before, his is really a speaking horn. Donald constructs quite another kind of design—high and spacious. And Cedar brings us back to the source. Here, as throughout the album, Billy Higgins and Walter Booker adapt exactly to the needs of each tune and each soloist.

Of Billy, Donald emphasizes: “Talk about being underrated, Musicians know how important Billy ¡s, but more of the public should. There’s a whole school of drummers that have taken out of Billy. In his way, he’s been as much of an influence on a lot of drummers in and around New York as Elvin Jones. He has a basic simplicity and drive, but it’s not as simple as it seems. Underneath there’s a storm going on.”

Donald first heard Walter Booker when he bought a record in Europe of the JFK Quintet, the Washington combo in which Booker first became known. “I saw him when he first came to New York in October, 1964,” Donald recalls. “He was afraid to stay. He didn’t think he could make it in New York. I hired him the first week to give him confidence, and now, after being with Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer, and Stan Getz, among others, he knows he can make it anywhere.”

The final track, Pentatonic, came about, says Donald, “because I was trying to learn how to play the pentatonic scale. And as I worked on it, this melodic structure came to me. The challenge was to write a blues in which none of the notes in the melody leave the pentatonic scale.” Structure aside, it becomes a buoyant experience in a series of flights by Sonny, Donald, Hank, and Cedar.

Here, then, is a further evocation of the jazz side of Donald Byrd. There continue to be several other Byrds. Donald is teaching in New York and is increasingly involved in classical composition. In Europe, he also conducts, composes, and plays jazz dates. For a long time, in and out of music, Donald has been a searcher. He keeps reaching out to and absorbing experience. As for his future in music, so far as Donald sees it, “the sky’s the limit.”

—NAT HENTOFF