Lou Donaldson - Lush Life
Released - 1986
Recording and Session Information
Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 20, 1967
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Garnett Brown, trombone; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Jerry Dodgion, alto sax, flute; Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; Pepper Adams, baritone sax; McCoy Tyner, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Al Harewood, drums; Duke Pearson, arranger.
1822 tk.4 Sweet And Lovely
1823 tk.6 You've Changed
1824 tk.7 Sweet Slumber
1825 tk.9 It Might As Well Be Spring
1826 tk.11 What Will I Tell My Heart
1827 tk.14 The Good Life
1828 tk.15 Stardust
See Also: GXF-3068
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| Sweet Slumber | Lucky Millinder, Al J. Neiburg, Henri Woode | January 20 1967 |
| You've Changed | Bill Carey, Carl Fischer | January 20 1967 |
| The Good Life | Sacha Distel, Jack Reardon | January 20 1967 |
| Side Two | ||
| Stardust | Hoagy Carmichael | January 20 1967 |
| What Will I Tell My Heart | Irving Gordon, Jack Lawrence, Peter Tinturin | January 20 1967 |
| It Might as Well Be Spring | Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers | January 20 1967 |
Liner Notes
At the time of this recording, Lou Donaldson felt that alto saxophonists had been neglecting a certain characteristic of the horn: “the pretty side.” “While exploring the harmonic possibilities,” he said, “they tend to forget the basic sound of the instrument.”
Donaldson’s right to say that is enforced by the fact that he has always practiced what he preached. A player who usually concentrates on the swinging, bluesy side of things, he nevertheless has found time to insert the touching ballad performance at the appropriate moment throughout his career.
This set is a recital of ballads, old and not-so-old, standards, and not-so-standards. The setting is quite different from the one that we have come to expect of Lou over the years. With Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Jerry Dodgion doubling on alto sax and flute, Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Garnett Brown on trombone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Al Harewood on drums, you have what might be termed a big-little band. Certainly, it is a band in the way it handles the fine, functional arrangements of Duke Pearson.
From the time Donaldson came to New York in the early-fifties, he has worked in a small group context. He limned the classic bebop alto-trumpet unison sound with Clifford Brown, both in his own group and with Art Blakey. Later it was Bill Hardman who supplied the trumpet in Lou’s quintet. In the sixties, Donaldson alternated between piano and organ in his groups. “The organ gives a big sound,” he told me, “but it’s not like the horns.”
Lou’s band experience goes back to a U.S. Navy dance orchestra that he played in during World War II. He has never forgotten the valuable lesson that he learned by blending, as part of a saxophone section, with an entire band. His own sound benefited from the experience, as did his subsequent work with one or more horns in the front line.
When Charlie Parker came on the scene in the mid-forties, Lou was one of the many that he influenced. But before that, it was Johnny Hodges that had captured Donaldson’s ears. Lou used to play the songs that Hodges played, such as “Passion Flower.” Today, you can hear both Hodges and Parker in Donaldson’s style, but as an absorbed, personal expression. The sound and style serve him well in successfully executing the music in this album. The opener is Lucky Millinder’s hit of the early-forties, “Sweet Slumber.” Lou states the melody at the beginning and end with the kind of sensitive reading that is jazz even if it is not a radical departure from the theme as written. Solos of a more improvisational nature are delivered sweetly, but not sleepily, by Shorter, Hubbard, and Tyner.
McCoy has an interlude in "You've Changed," the Carl Fischer standard. Otherwise it is all Lou, investing it with the right amounts of sadness, heartache, and other aspects of lost love. He reminded me so much of a singer that I mentioned Billie Holiday’s version from her Lady in Satin album. “I listened to that album for a week before I recorded this session’ Lou confided. It is with good reason that this highly critical saxophonist feels very happy with this track.
Dodgion’s flute introduces "The Good Life,” the ballad by French guitarist Sascha Distel. Jerry’s obligato backs Lou’s melody chorus, after which the altoist takes off on a typical Donaldson flight of intelligent embellishment before restating the theme and noodling into a board fade.
Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Stardust” begins with its seldom-heard verse. Then Lou clearly lines out the lovely chorus in forceful, gorgeous tone, ending with a quote from “Rhapsody in Blue” before returning to the verse.
Side Two commences with “What Will I Tell My Heart,” an oldie that hasn’t been heard for some time. Lou plays this plaintive lament smoothly, getting into a bluesy groove in the improvised section.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "It Might As Well Be Spring” is on evergreen that has been tackled by many great singers and instrumentalists. Here the song and the artist complement each other, with Lou adding a few new twists and turns along the way. He is helped briefly by a solo from Tyner.
The closer is a song most often associated in modern jazz with Thelonious Monk. Gus Arnheim’s “Sweet and Lovely” is still sweet — and lovely — after oil these years. Lou is loose and bluesy, and Hubbard takes up where he leaves off.
In talking about Billie Holiday’s recording of “You’ve Changed,” Donaldson went on to say how much he enjoys certain vocalists for their inspired ballad readings. Besides Lady Day, he claims Dinah Washington and Carmen McRae as two of his favorites, saying “They are just like musicians.” True. Conversely, in this album, Lou shows that he is quite a “singer.”
— IRA GITLER
RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes
A NEW LOOK AT LUSH LIFE
There is something startling about finding Lou Donaldson featured in the nonet setting heard on this album, even though the alto saxophonist had at least as much, if not more, of the prized commercial potential as the other Blue Note leaders of the period who enjoyed Duke Pearson’s medium-sized orchestral ministrations. As Ira Gitler points out in the original notes, Donaldson had set up different expectations, which were compounded by a general avoidance of sideman appearances after his early turns with Milt Jackson (plus what would soon be known as the Modern Jazz Quartet), Thelonious Monk, and Art Blakey’s proto-Jazz Messengers. On his own sessions, Donaldson favored four or five instruments; and despite excellent taste in trumpeters when they appeared on his albums, the fifth member on his quintet dates was more often a conga drummer than a second horn. Only twice in his first decade with Blue Note did Donaldson employ a sextet with trumpet and trombone, and before he taped Here ‘Tis in 1961, he even confined his appearances with organ combos to guest shots with Jimmy Smith.
Between 1963 and ‘66, Donaldson left Blue Note and recorded for Argo/Cadet, where his old preferences generally held true. One exception was Rough House Blues from 1964. Oliver Nelson also employed a nine-piece group there, employing a second trumpet where Lush Life uses trombone and organ instead of piano. The emphasis there on blues and Nelson originals creates a very different feeling from the present session, which marked the beginning of Donaldson’s second extended stint with Blue Note. What he encountered upon his return was a label well into a transitional phase, with Alfred Lion concluding his own career as a producer and Lion’s studio assistant Pearson growing more frequently involved in crafting little big-band settings for several of the label’s stars. Here, Pearson placed the emphasis exclusively on ballads, including the relatively ignored “Sweet Slumber” and “What Will I Tell My Heart?” Gitler mentions that the mark of Johnny Hodges is more evident than usual in the work of Parker progeny Donaldson, and the comparison is apt given a preference for both small horn support and organ/blues settings at the end of Hodges’s recording career. Another, perhaps even more fitting, analogy is the discography of Hank Crawford, who had great success on Atlantic in the mid-sixties playing ballads over tight horn scores.
Pearson does find some fresh touches, especially in his use of Jerry Dodgion’s flute as an independent ensemble voice in spots, but the overall results are far from as iconoclastic as the personnel might suggest. What soloing there is by the sidemen is primarily confined to “Sweet Slumber,” where Wayne Shorter sounds consciously to be harkening back to his early style. (Shorter is also featured on another Pearson project of the time, the Lee Morgan session that waited 30 years for its ultimate release under the title Standards.) McCoy Tyner, a more frequent presence playing Pearson’s arrangements, had been recording exclusively for Blue Note since leaving John Coltrane at the end of 1965, although his own first star turn for the label, The Real McCoy, would not be taped for another three months. Drummer Al Harewood is heard in his only recorded appearance with either Tyner or bassist Ron Carter.
Another odd wrinkle is the circuitous history of this album. It received its present title and cover design in 1967, and was assigned catalog number 4254, then ultimately not released until 13 years later in Japan, where it was called Sweet Slumber and assigned a different cover. When Blue Note was reactivated five years later in the US, one of the first “lost sessions” to emerge was this one, with original title and cover restored.
Despite the populist appeal that Donaldson shared with Stanley Turrentine, a frequent Pearson collaborator during the period, this music was the alto saxophonist’s lone encounter with Blue Note’s house arranger. Nearly six years would pass before his horn was given more lavish treatment (on the album Sophisticated Lou). We need not look far for an explanation. Less than three months after these tracks were taped, Donaldson returned to Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in his now preferred organ group setting and cut Alligator Bogaloo, the biggest hit of his career, and the template for the next several years of his recording career.
— Bob Blumenthal, 2006
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