BLP 4036

Lou Donaldson - Sunny Side Up

Released - August 1960

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 5, 1960
Bill Hardman, trumpet; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Parlan, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Al Harewood, drums.

tk.9 Politely
tk.13 Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise
tk.18 Goose Grease

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 28, 1960
Bill Hardman, trumpet #1,2,4; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Parlan, piano; Laymon Jackson, bass; Al Harewood, drums.

tk.21 The Man I Love
tk.25 Blues For J.P.
tk.26 The Truth
tk.28 It's You Or No One

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Blues for J.P.	Horace Parlan	28/02/1960
The Man I Love	George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin	28/02/1960
Politely	Bill Hardman	05/02/1960
It's You or No One	Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne	28/02/1960
Side Two
The Truth	Lou Donaldson	28/02/1960
Goose Grease	Lou Donaldson	05/02/1960
Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise	Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg	05/02/1960

Liner Notes

JUDGING from the reactions among the jazz audience to his recent Blue Note albums, Lou Donaldson is finally achieving at least some of the Wider recognition and understanding that has long been due him. In a decade during which there have been exceedingly few individualistic alto saxophonists, Donaldson has been consistently developing a style and sound that are very much — and very consistently — his own.

"One of the unique qualities of Lou's work," says his pianist, Horace Parlan, "is that he incorporates a great deal of the whole jazz tradition in his playing. I hear not only Bird but the elegance of Johnny Hodges on ballads. He's listened to just about everyone, and not only alto players. You can tell he's absorbed Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young, among others. With this knowledge of the entire jazz language, Lou is so definitely an individual voice. Unlike most of the altoists since Bird, he's far from an imitation of Parker, Lou sets his Own goals and goes his own way."

Donaldson was born in North Carolina on November 1, 1926. His father was a preacher and his mother, a music teacher, gave Lou his first instruction. Encouraged by Dizzy Gillespie, Lou came to New York in 1950 and studied at the Institute of Music. He worked at most of the major New York jazz clubs — Minton's, Birdland, etc. — and gained added experience in sessions with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and other major figures in the evolution of modern jazz. In recent years, he's been leading his own combos; and in August, 1960, Donaldson left for the west coast for his first swing there as a leader.

Lou agrees with Horace Parlan that his influences have been many and from all eras. "I first started playing like Eddie Vincent. Remember his Red Blues and House of Joy with Cootie Williams? His kind of playing was popular in the section of North Carolina where I was brought up. On ballads, Johnny Hodges seemed to me to be the man. Benny Carter was too, but not so often as Hodges. Later in New York, of course, I was impressed by what Bird was doing."

After a number of years in New York, Donaldson came to the realization that "a lot of the things I'd learned over the years from working with many different leaders and many different types of music were still valid. I began remembering everything I'd heard that I'd liked, and assimilated it all into the way I wanted to play. One night, for example, I was playing With Donald Byrd and he asked me where I'd gotten a certain idea. He'd never heard it before. Oh, I said, I played that a long time ago based on what I was hearing then. Donald said I must be an old guy. No, I told him, its just that I've been listening as well as playing for a long time. I'd listened, in fact, for a number of years before I even began to play. And so, I've got a lot of music to draw on when I play now."

For this album, Horace Parlan wrote the opener, Blues for J.P., dedicated to his wife. It's a forthright blues with the kind of theme that sounds so natural that it appears to have always been part of everyone's basic jazz book. Bill Hardman, a 27-year-old Clevelander, who has worked with Tiny Bradshaw, Todd Dameron, Charlie Mingus and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, plays a characteristically incisive, pungent solo. Hardman has learned the value of understatement and how to build effectively to climaxes, as this contribution indicates. Lou leaps in with a surge of emotion. Note the clarity and power of his tone and the thoughtfulness of his conception. In a tonal sense, Lou is part of the tradition that also encompasses Hilton Jefferson as wen as Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges. He has a lithe, vigorous attack and at times, a piercing intensity. There are vigorous solos by Parlan and bassist Layman Jackson before the ensemble again takes the theme up and out.

Like other musicians who have worked with Donaldson, Horace Parlan believes that he has broadened his scope as a result of Lou's example. "Lou," explains Parlan, "goes back and digs up things I'd never think of playing. And they all turn out to be good blowing tunes as well as being melodically attractive." The Man I Love, which serves as a showcase for Lou in this set, is taken much more briskly than usual. Note how cleanly Lou articulates and again, the unhesitating momentum of Lou's ideas. Hardman has a crisp, driving solo while Parlan's is one of his most inventive in the album. As in all his work, the playing is emotionally forceful but also intriguingly developed in terms of ideas.

The interesting thing about Bill Hardman's Politely, Lou notes, is that "it's a groove tune, as we used to call this kind of number. It has to be played in exactly the tempo we used here — neither slower or faster." It's also a tempo in which Lou evidently is thoroughly at ease. He has a sweeping solo which is a model of what can be called vocalized playing. It's entirely relaxed and entirely personal. Hardman falls into the same ease of beat and naturalness of phrasing but. like Lou, he simultaneously builds and controls tension expertly. Horace Parlan's is a rolling, blues-colored, "down" solo. Note how firm and yet releasing the rhythm section is. "I prefer for this kind of recording a rhythm section that doesn't get in the way," says Lou, "and that doesn't cross the melodic lines."

It was Bill Hardman, so far as Lou can remember, who suggested It's You Or No One. It's a spirited, free-wheeling interpretation by all. "Lou," says Parlan, "doesn't believe in having what he calls tight arrangements. We do, of course, have a framework; but within it, he gives us all the room in the world to create what we feel."

Lou Donaldson's The Truth came about because, he explains, "I wanted a more or less traditional tune in which I could play a cross between spirituals and the blues. It's in a regular 32-bar form." Lou achieved exactly what he wanted. The theme sounds as if it could easily have been heard on a blues recording of thirty or more years ago. Simple but pliable, it leads Lou into a warm, deeply expressive solo that manages to be tender and singing as well as "earthy." Note the combined church-and-blues backing Lou receives from Horace Parlan. Lou's work here, it seeems to me, is among his very best on records. Horace follows in the same secularized, quasi-religious vein. Lou returns, and again illustrates how effective simplicity can be.

The title of Goose Grease is meant to be made clear by the tempo. "It's like a lope," says Lou. "Almost, you might say, like someone being goosed on. That's why I asked the drummer to play an anticipated boat rather than directly on the beat. In that way, the tune is kept up in the air." Lou's solo reminded me of another observation by Horace Parlan: "His time is practically flawless, but he also can do things within the framework of a particular beat that sounds as if they're both inside and outside the meter. In other words, he's very subtle at playing with and against rhythms." Hardman's solo is pointed and economical. Horace Parlan again takes the blues partway into church, churning up considerable passion. Sam Jones, currently with Cannonball Adderley, contributes a lucid, deeply pulsating solo.

Softly As In A Morning Sunrise is another example of Lou's finding vintage standards that all too few other modernists explore. "I have a broad repertory," notes Lou, "because I've been playing quite a while and have heard a lot of songs. Some of the young experimenters devote so much of their time to only experimenting that they miss a whole lot of things." Hardman is gently but firmly effective in his muted solo, playing with rhythmic relaxation and selecting his notes with judicious taste. Lou Donaldson's solo characteristically combines poise With vigorous emotion. Horace Parlan is subdued but nonetheless impassioned. Sam Jones, a bassist With a remarkably functional, classical approach to his solos, constructs one that is beautifully ordered with not a note wasted. Bill returns in the muted vein in which the track started, bringing to an end an album with a widely diversified spectrum of moods. It's also an album that should further reinforce the conviction of more and more listeners that Lou Donaldson has been underappreciated too long.

— NAT HENTOFF
Co-Editor, The Jazz Review

Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER