BLP 4044

The Three Sounds - Moods

Released - October 1960

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 28, 1960
Gene Harris, piano, celeste; Andrew Simpkins, bass; Bill Dowdy, drums.

tk.5 Loose Walk
tk.6 Things Ain't What They Used To Be
tk.7 Love For Sale
tk.9 Li'l Darlin'
tk.10 I'm Beginning To See The Light
tk.11 Tammy's Breeze
tk.15 On Green Dolphin Street
tk.23 Sandu

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Love for Sale	Cole Porter	28/06/1960
Things Ain't What They Used to Be	Mercer Ellington	28/06/1960
On Green Dolphin Street	Bronisław Kaper, Ned Washington	28/06/1960
Loose Walk	Sonny Stitt	28/06/1960
Side Two
Li'l Darlin'	Neal Hefti	28/06/1960
I'm Beginning to See the Light	Ellington, George, Hodges, James	28/06/1960
Tammy's Breeze	Gene Harris	28/06/1960
Sandu	Clifford Brown	28/06/1960

Liner Notes

AT this Writing it has been a little over two years since the Three Sounds, a group formed in South Bend in 1956 and later based in Washington, D.C., arrived in New York City for its first gig. Not long afterward, Alfred Lion had corralled the trio into the studios for an initial LP date, Introducing The 3 Sounds, (Blue Note 1600).

It is common knowledge by now that the Sounds have established themselves firmly on the jazz scene from coast to coast (currently they are playing to enthusiastic audiences at the Zebra Lounge in Los Angeles). Their progress is remarkable; first, because a piano-bass-drums group, having the commonest of all trio instrumentations, is the hardest kind to lift out of the musical and economic rut; second, because the Sounds managed to accomplish this with precious little help from the critics.

In a sense it might be said that the critics did help, but inadvertently. A negative review of their first LP, published in Down Beat, was cast in such clearly exaggerated terms that a wave of sympathy reaction resulted. Their second album, Bottoms Up (Blue Note 4014), received a four-star (very good) rating in the same publication; but by that time the Sounds had already been solidly established with a substantial following of fans. It is entirely possible that had the first LP been assigned to the same reviewer who covered the second, it too would have been rated four stars, since the two albums were virtually identical in musical concept and execution.

But enough of the critics; what concerns us now is the remarkable success of the present album, which would seem to be their most jubilant and cohesive effort to date. It was no surprise to me when Alfred Lion commented that this session went off extraordinarily well, and that from the first moment to the last there was a sense of mutual understanding, enthusiasm and inspiration between Harris, Simpkins and Dowdy. Several of the tracks came off on the first take.

Side One opens With Love for Sale, a melody With which the trio poses itself a problem, since there have been so many versions (especially in piano trio format) that it might have seemed practically impossible to find anything new to say with such a vehicle. But the Sounds accomplish it in characteristic style, with one of those suspenseful, long-drawn-out introductions in which a riff is established, a Simpkins solo added under the repeated riff, and finally, bursting out of this preparatory cocoon. Gene Harris begins to trace the melody on octaves against a lightly Latin rhythm. As always, Dowdy's cooperation is sensitive, skilful and brilliantly captured by Rudy van Gelder, Notice, in the second chorus, how close Harris stays to the original melody, using syncopation to give personal character to his slight variations. A funkier atmosphere creeps in during the second chorus, abetted by Dowdy's sticks-on-cymbals pulsation. A closing half-chorus leads into a series of riffs going out somewhat in the manner of the introduction. It's a long track, the duration of which is psychologically shortened by the form of the arrangement and the melodic and rhythmic ingenuity that's maintained throughout.

Things Ain't What They Used To Be is the best known composition of Mercer Ellington, whose big band was heard at Birdland last season (his father is also a well known composer). I don't think there has ever been a version quite like this one; Mercer Will be shocked, but pleasantly, to hear it played at an unusually slow tempo of barely 14 bars to the minute. After two choruses of the theme, with fills by Simpkins and Dowdy, the secondary melody line is introduced, played in full chord style with a firm four from Dowdy. This tense build-up leads to a contrast in the form of ad-lib blues in the fourth chorus — with Harris' characteristically aggressive use of a trill at the eighth measure. In the fifth chorus, notice the rolling right-hand effects somewhat in the manner first associated With the late Avery Parrish, against a Garner-like strumming in the left. Double-time from Dowdy gradually steps up the emotional intensity in 6 and 7; the eighth chorus gets back to the previous mood, and the ninth reverts to melody, with two four-bar tags. This is the blues with a vengeance.

On Green Dolphin Street is a Hollywood movie melody by Bronislaw Kaper, whose previous peripheral association with jazz came through part-authorship Of All God's Children Got Rhythm. Here again Harris uses the extended-introduction technique, built here around the tonic chord, With the melody gently moving in against on E Flat pedal point and the second chorus swinging loosely in exuberant contrast. A return to the pedal point leads to a discreet fade at the end. Loose Walk, which originated on a Sonny Stitt record date for which Johnny Richards wrote the arrangements, is an up-tempo 12-bar blues riff and is the least formalized performance of this set, with some of Harris' most incisive and inspired moments.

L'il Darlin' was originally composed by Neal Hefti for the Count Basie orchestra, though since then Neal has had lyrics set to it and it has begun to assume some importance as a commercial hit. Unbelievable though it may seem, the tempo here is even slower than on the aforementioned Things Ain't. The Sounds set themselves a challenge by slowing down to a point at which even a chorus-and-a-half performance (plus two four-bar tags) runs to almost five minutes. But somehow they make it seem a natural treatment for the melody rather than a conscious device; more important, Harris imparts to the tune a powerful blues quality that builds superbly during the second chorus.

I'm Beginning to See the Light, a Johnny Hodges riff extended into an Ellington composition in 1944, is given a brief and light-hearted interpretation with effects leading in and out. Again the value of tension-and-release is exploited as Harris outlines the first half-chorus of the melody With the right hand, joined by lull rhythm at bar 17. All the way to Andy Simpkins' final break this one cooks in an unpretentious and humorous groove.

Tammy's Breeze, the only original Gene Harris composition in this set, was named for his youngest daughter. He explains that the strikingly different quality of the young lady's beauty inspired him to write this exotically flavored work, which has a touch of Latin rhythm.

Sandy, one of the less often performed compositions of the late Clifford Brown, is another theme based on the regular blues structure. Much use is made on this track of the polka-rhythm effect, in which the first three beats of the bar are heavily accented and the fourth is tacet. It's interesting to compare this With Things Ain't and Loose Walk, for all three are blues, yet each has a distinctive quality and mood that belies the similarity of the basic fabric.

But perhaps that's one of the secrets of the Three Sounds' success. They remind me of something that was once said about Dinah Washington. Listening to her at Birdland one night a friend of mine said: "She could sing the National Emblem March and make it sound like the blues." I've little doubt that the same result could be achieved, without any trouble at all, by Messrs. Harris, Simpkins and Dowdy. It is the spirit of the blues — which, in essence, is the spirit of jazz itself — that has helped to weld the trio into one of the best-integrated units of its kind in jazz today.

— LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz: Horizon Press)

Cover Photo by HUGH BELL
Mode: RUTH MASON
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER