BST 84302

Introducing Kenny Cox and the Contemporary Jazz Quintet

Released - 1969

Recording and Session Information

United Sound Systems, Detroit, MI, December 9, 1968
Charles Moore, trumpet; Leon Henderson, tenor sax; Kenny Cox, piano; Ron Brooks, bass; Danny Spencer, drums.

3050 tk.1 Eclipse
3048 tk.2 Diahnn
3047 tk.3 Trance Dance
3049 tk.4 Number Four
3046 tk.5 Mystique
3051 tk.7 You

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Mystique	Kenny Cox	December 9 1968
You	David Durrah	December 9 1968
Trance Dance	Kenny Cox	December 9 1968
Side Two
Eclipse	Leon Henderson	December 9 1968
Number Four	Charles Moore	December 9 1968
Diahnn	Leon Henderson	December 9 1968

Liner Notes

Although the release of a new album by an established artist is often an eagerly awaited event, there are few opportunities in music more gratifying than the chance to welcome a brand new unit making its debut record. In the Kenny Cox Quintet — or, to give it he official billing, Kenny Cox and the Contemporary Jazz Quintet — Blue Note has found five new talents that will, beyond any reasonable doubt, make as firm a mark in jazz territory as did the Miles Davis Quintet a decade ago.

Producer Duke Pearson first heard about the group through Jack Springer, the Detroit disc jockey. Not long afterward, he went out to the Motor City to record the quintet. The men had been together for about a year, but most of them had never recorded before with anyone, and most of the material heard here was new at the time of the session.

Kenny Cox was born in Detroit on November 8, 1940. There were no musicians in the family, but his mother was eager for him to study the piano, and at the age of eight, despite a preference for the trumpet/ he acceded to her wishes. ("Eventually, though, I did get around to working with the trumpet for four or five years.") He studied for eight years at the Detroit Conservatory of Music, was in the music curriculum at Cass Tech High School, and was a composition major for two years at the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts.

During his years of study, Kenny began to take professional jobs, starting when he was 5 at local clubs and cabarets. "There was plenty of activity around town at that time," he recalls, "with fellows like Yusef Lateef, Charles McPherson, and Hugh Lawson still on the scene locally.

"I kept on freelancing with guys of that caliber until 1961 . That was the year I came to New York; it was also the year I began three years of touring with Etta Jones. When I wasn't on the road playing piano for her, I'd do quite a bit of writing for New York groups."

Returning to Detroit in 1 964, Cox worked with such visiting celebrities as Wes Montgomery, Roy Haynes, and Roland Kirk. "When I finally got to form my own group, for local concert and club dates, we managed to build up a local following from all stations of life teenyboppers to old beboppers. Actually nobody in the group except me has had any bebop orientation. I dug Bud Powell, Barry Harris, and Tommy Flanagan — in fact, I'd still name them as important influences, though I must say Herbie Hancock turned me around."

Charles Moore, whose coruscating horn provides the front line with its impeccable lead, is 28 and came to Detroit by way of Sheffield, Alabama. He studied at Mississippi Southern College and Wayne State University. Moore was the leader of one of the first avant garde groups around Detroit, known as the D, C. (for Detroit Contemporary) Five. As these sides attest, he was strongly impressed by Miles Davis in his formative years.

Leon Henderson, also 28, is the younger brother of Blue Note's own Joe Henderson and the youngest of 15 children. Born Dec. 11, 1940, in Lima, Ohio, he attended Kentucky State College and came to Detroit in 1965. He met Kenny Cox three years ago in a band led by trombonist George Bohanon, with which Cox worked off and on for three years.

Ron Brooks at 33 is kiddingly known as the old man of the quintet (a designation which Pops Foster or even Milt Hinton might greet with surprise). He's from Evanston, Illinois and now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A former University of Michigan student, he was a member of the Bob James Trio for some time.

The intricate and solid percussive underpinning for the combo is supplied by Danny Spencer. Born April 17, 1942 in Ishpeming, Michigan, Spencer had two years of study with a concert drummer, Frank Perne, but is otherwise self-taught. About three years ago he went to Europe for a while, along with Ron Brooks, working with a stimulating variety of people from Dexter Gordon and Art Farmer to Memphis Slim and guitarist Rene Thomas.

These individual credits have coalesced into a unit which/ while clearly drawing some of its inspiration from the Miles Davis Quintet, has gone a long way in a short time toward establishing a firm identity of its own. This is due as much to the degree of maturity achieved by the soloist as to the probingly meaningful character of the compositions.

'Mystique" is described by Kenny Cox as "my initial effort as a composer using compound structures. I tried to put a bebop feeling in over these structures" (notice the actual bebop phrase during the main motif) "and also give it a spatial effect. I wrote it just a year or so ago."

This track offers striking evidence of Moore's linear creativity. His loose, limber, never cluttered lines are followed by a similarly impressive sample of Leon Henderson. He too knows how to use space, and integrates superbly with the rhythm section. If Danny Spencer's contribution comes as an impressive surprise, be prepared to hear this standard maintained throughout the album. Leader Cox adheres to the overall feel of the tune, which conjures up a mood well suited to the title.

"You," written by a local pianist friend of Kenny's, hits a slow and reflective yet never somber groove. Note the sympathetic back-stopping by Cox during Henderson's solo, a lyrical contribution from Moore, then a firm but gentle statement from the leader. Ron Brooks's bass, also heard in a solo here, achieves a big, round tone and that rarity among bassists, a genuine treble-clef style melodic concept executed in the bass clef.

Written in 1966, Kenny's "Trance Dance" was originally performed and recorded live by the Jazz Crusaders at the Pacific Jazz Festival. Kenny characterizes it as "an extended minor blues, somewhat commercially oriented. We wanted a spatial effect with compound structures over a popular dance beat." The performance opens with piano and bass repeating a figure in octave unison; this is continued under the horns as they state the theme. During highly-charged solo passages a hypnotic mood is maintained that is well fitted to the name of the piece. Even the abrupt cut-off seems logical, as if the trance has suddenly been snapped off and we are returned to reality.

"Eclipse," a Leon Henderson theme, seems to impart much of the Miles flavor, partly through the device of stating a brief theme at a brisk pace before tearing right into the blowing passages. Again, note the fantastic ears and mutual listening capacity of the rhythm section members. For such a new combo, there is an extraordinary sense of unity. There are touches of the Hancock influence detectable in Cox's solo here. Leon is at his most volatile, yet he never wanders off into an exhibitionistic flurry; there is in him something of the best of Wayne Shorter and also much of his brother Joe — these are the tenor men who have no doubt done most to shape his style.

"Number Four," Charles Moore's contribution to the album as composer, is Kenny Cox's preferred track of the set. I am inclined to agree with his evaluation. This is also the longest number, offering everyone an opportunity to establish his own thing. Leon Henderson, in particular, shows stunning variety in his rhythmic, melodic, and linear invention.

Summing up his feelings about "Number Four," Cox says: "This is pretty much indicative of the general direction into which we are all trying to channel ourselves. There are a number of time signatures and harmonic colorings, but it's all coming out of the same metric flow. We'd like to keep going along the same lines but become a little less regimented."

"Diahnn" is not a misspelling. It does not refer to TV's Julia but to the year-old daughter of Leon. Charles Moore introduces it with an incisive yet poetic manner; despite the bite in his tone, there is warmth and emotion here, too. Note the effective touches of 1 2/8 behind Leon's spare, thoughtful solo.

"We take particular pleasure," says Cox, "in playing a ballad of this kind. Many groups tend to overlook them, yet there's so much that can be done with them."

To sum up the nature and direction of this exciting new group, one might capsulize the whole effort with the single word "variations." "This is the best way to describe our approach," Kenny confirms. "Also, we feel this is more of an orchestral type effort than just a combo per se.

"Our feeling is that all things change, and that we are involved in a constantly changing idiom. If only for this reason, I don't want to put any particular tag on the group as to style.

"I think we are creating new ideas, but I don't feel anyone can innovate unless he is aware of what has gone before him. It disturbs me to hear someone just run his hand all over the keys and assume an 'I got it!' attitude. It isn't that easy.

"It seems to me that if you can hear within a man's work a consciousness of some earlier elements, then you know that what he is doing has roots and validity."

There is nothing to be added to this succinct summation. Kenny Cox and the Contemporary Jazz Quintet qualify on all counts by these standards. I predict a bright and momentous future for this latest in a long and distinguished line of Blue Note discoveries.

LEONARD FEATHER 

(author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties)