BLP 5020

Gil Melle - New Faces - New Sounds

Released - 1953

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 2, 1952
Eddie Bert, trombone; Gil Melle, tenor sax; Joe Manning, vibes; George Wallington, piano; Red Mitchell, bass; Max Roach, drums; Monica Dell, vocals #2-4.

BN461-3 (tk.4) Four Moons
BN462-3 (tk.8) The Gears
BN463-0 (tk.9) Mars
BN464-0 (tk.10) Sunset Concerto

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, January 31, 1953
Eddie Bert as X. Kentonite, trombone; Gil Melle, tenor sax; Tal Farlow, guitar; Clyde Lombardi, bass; Joe Morello, drums.

BN465-4 tk.5 Cyclotron
BN466-2 tk.8 October
BN467-0 tk.10 Under Capricorn
BN468-0 tk.13 Venus

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
October	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Cyclotron	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Venus	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Under Capricorn	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Side Two
The Gears	Gil Melle	March 2 1952
Mars	Gil Melle	March 2 1952
Four Moons	Gil Melle	March 2 1952
Sunset Concerto	Gil Melle	March 2 1952

Liner Notes

AMONG present-day jazz musicians, the parallel gifts of taste and continuity are sadly lacking. With whatever high harmonic talents they may be provided, however rich their melodic fancy, no matter how handsomely equipped with rhythmic ingenuity, that pleasing pairing — taste and continuity — rarely makes its way into their work. All of this is, of course, to indicate how much these twin values appear in the music of Gil Mellé, how much and how musically.

To hear what I mean, run the opening sides over on your machine, then listen to them all over again. Not only do they achieve beginnings, middles, and ends, each in itself, but they establish a continuity from side to side as well. If you're addicted to jazz titles, you may find the musical meaning expressed in the mixture of scientific nomenclature — seasonal, atomic, astronomical. If you're more interested in the way the music is put together as music, you shouldn't miss the development of ideas from tenor and trombone reflection in October, to spirited byplay between those instruments in Cyclotron, to suggestive rhumba beats in Venus, finally to boppy unison, more or less elated, Under Capricorn. All of it hangs together, that's clear. What's more subtle is the pizzicato guitar figure Tal Farlow plucks so prettily behind the two horns at the beginning of October, the quiet authority of Joe Morello's Latin drumming in Venus, and the easy matching of trombone and tenor sounds in the last of this group.

The musical atmosphere more rigorously follows the lyrical titles in the second quartet of Mellé compositions that it does in the first four. The motivation of this group is suggested, at least, by the cover Gil has designed for his album, with its facile employment of the familiar devices of abstract painting for its design. Within the design, and very much a part of the devices, is the plan of the album — circles made to resemble galaxies of stars — and the names of the pieces that make it up. Similarly, within the design of modern mechanics and the stars and the planets, there is plenty of room for swinging solos, such as Gil's and George Wallington's in Gears and Eddie Bert's in Moons and Sunset and Tal Farlow's in Cyclotron and Capricorn. What you often have, then, is a series of backdrops for solos, or, just as frequently, background music that illustrates its atmospheric themes so well you forget all about listening for solos and pay attention strictly to an overall line, a continuity, a motion forward to a necessary end, all generally accomplished with taste.

Taste doesn't some naturally to anybody; in this respect, Gil is anybody. He's a West Coast native who went to hi school in New York City, returned to Hollywood or advanced musical studies and four years of gigging around from 1947 to 1951 (reaching as far south as Tijuana in his jobbing travels) before returning to New York to settle down to arranging, composing, and playing. From the studying and the jobs and the writing came taste, taste for a wide range of effects and resources: polytonality, as in Mars; time against time, as in the waltz against fox-trot beats in Sunset Concerto; fragmentary experiments without any key center, as in October, after the opening figure has spun out. Taste, too, one should add, for the simple and the obvious, as in the well-named, well-scored, well-written Venus, in which Gil relies upon repetition of rhumba patterns almost to monotony and then rescues all with a deft departure from the simple and the obvious in the multiple-key coda.

Gil's influences are more obvious than the devices with which he relieves the monotony—he cites Stan Kenton, Thelonious Monk and the other boppers, Debussy and the other fathers and doctors of the Impressionist school. I should add Hollywood — the tinsel, the romantic, the lush — to Gil's list and then admit my admiration for this youngster's ability to assimilate the simple, the obvious, bop. Impressionism, and Hollywood, and make it all come out fresh and structured and tasteful.

Cover Design by GIL MELLÉ

—BARRY ULANOV
(Editor, Metronome)

Complete Fifties Sessions CD Notes

A PAPER TIME CAPSULE WHEN MICHAEL COSCUNA advised me that a compendium of these early recordings was due for reissue, I must confess that a crescendo of uneasiness filled my soul as I sat down and prepared to listen, after so many years, to each track. I am a musician who has never been content with any of yesterday's efforts, and these half-century old preludes to a lifetime spent in the creation of cutting edge music could only serve to illustrate how much I needed to know and was able to accomplish in those early years.

I sit and listen. The recollections begin.

I wrote my first ever composition, "The Gears," during the time that I worked as a messenger on the Lehigh Valley Railroad (hence the title) at the age of 14 while also struggling with a tenor sax, the boxcars at Washington Street serving as my sole practice "studios." It was virtually unheard of in those days to use the voice as an instrument (excepting "scat") as I did in this piece. Notable. "Mars," "Four Moons" and "Venus" were composed soon afterwards and interspersed with many drawings and paintings, one of which won first prize in a Red Cross competition. Working in my favor was an insatiable passion for jazz spawned by a reasonably complete collection of Ellington which I had amassed from used record shops with my school lunch money. I was eight when I started collecting them. Duke's inventiveness on the Brunswick label. .. "Tishomingo Blues," "Black and Tan Fantasy" and especially "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" became heady stuff for me. I also saw the band at the Paramount and Adams theatres and can still name all of the players. At 13, Monk's music became the main occupant of my skull. The notion that I could ever be a jazzman, however, was, in Oscar Wilde's, words "a dream that far exceeds reality," a calling as privileged as priesthood and so I entertained no delusions of grandeur except, perhaps, to think of how Thelonious might approach playing the saxophone as a basis for my style.

I soon discovered that the things I needed to know could not be learned through instruction...only experience! To this day, I have never had a single lesson but my associations, through the years, with the world's most gifted musicians and artists who have illuminated my thoughts and given substance to my efforts. The list would be endless. For me, intense personal observation surpassed academia. I played gigs with Freddie Roach and the supremely gifted Joe Manning (vibes/piano and a close friend and protégé of Bud Powell and Milt Jackson.) Freddie, years later, became a Blue Note recording artist and Joe, heard here, died at 22. A great loss. At 16, during the Korean emergency, I lied about my age and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Discharged at 18, I spent many nights playing jazz in countless gin joints. Two years later, I met Alfred Lion and was given the opportunity of my life. He signed me to a one year contract (the first of five) to record for the greatest jazz label that ever was...Blue Note. Just look at the names on my records... Max Roach who was a legend to me even as a small boy. Oscar Pettiford who played on so many of cherished Ellington records. 1 sure was scared, which is saying a lot after having been in the corps. The faces of Red Mitchell, George Wallington and Eddie, Bert (a lifetime close friend) flash through mind as I continue listening to these old sides. Like Alfred, the man who most influenced my life, I too gave opportunities to young musicians that I knew and held in high regard. The debuts of Urbie Green, Joe Morello, Tal Farlow, Ed Thigpen, Lou Mecca, Bill Phillips, Joe Cinderella and others took place within these records. The tuba (Don Butterfield) and French horn (Julius Watkins) saw the first light of day as solo improvisatory instruments with me but, historically, the most important innovation in these works is that it is the first time ever (1951) that a guitar was used to replace the piano in small group instrumentation (the very basis of rock music). I thought that it was a sound idea since both instruments were fully capable of comping but the guitar's potential as a front line instrument (as with horns) was unlimited. Tal and others understood and much of the results are here. He has recently died (1998) and I feel as though I have lost a brother as I hear his flawless, timeless guitar and picture, in my mind, those enormous hands working their magic. The compositions on my first album were meant to be performed as "The Interplanetary Suite" and half of my fourth album features another suite, "Five Impressions Of Color." These compositional forms for a group were totally unique at the time.

My heated discussions with Max concerning the "unheard-of-at-the-time" false ending on the binary composition "Mars," blood dripping from my fingers (an accident) and down my horn while playing chorus after chorus and on the Patterns in Jazz date and arguments with Oscar concerning the use of a flatted ninth in the bass against a major chord at the very end of "Long Ago And Far Away" stand out in my recollection of myriads of anecdotes and incidents connected with these records. The picture of Pettiford and I that graces that album was taken at the height of our. ..shall I say... disagreement.

From the aforementioned, you might say that I'm a sort of "Jazz Chemist," an incurable experimentalist. I've spent my life living in and for the future. What did it all lead to? Virtually every innovation in electronic music was made by me...an awesome statement yet true. I challenge anyone to disprove it. Beginning in late 1958, I have systematically altered the course of music at its very foundations with a soldering iron and my passions. The following "firsts" are mine...live performance of electronic music ('68 Monterey Jazz electronic film score (Michael Crichton's The Festival and earlier) Andromeda Strain), electronic television score (Rod Serling's Night Gallery and earlier) plus the earliest electronic jazz recordings (TOME VI on Verve). I led the first "synth" group (the Electronauts) for years and created many instruments including the worlds first electronic wind instrument and the drum machine (see photos and back cover). All of this because Alfred, the futurist, believed in me from the very beginning. It began with these sides and today, to the chagrin or joy of millions, synthesis is a part of nearly all music.

I stop the turntable and think a bit more about "The Gears."

I had the privelege of being Alfred's closest friend during that decade and his retirement to a distant land for many years did not diminish our comraderie. One memorable night he called me and asked, as a personal favor to him, to record a modern version of "The Gears. I was truly amazed and flattered, but declined. After my experiences in music it would seem to be a mega step backwards. He was, however, very enthusiastic about my Mindscape album (Blue Note 92168) prior to its release so his concept of an updated version of my first composition was not idle speculation. "Let me think about it" I said. Two days later CNN announced his passing and the new "Gears" was no longer conjecture. The great man's last request was fulfilled and he was, as always, right..." The Gears" is important.

I created many record jackets for Blue Note and clearly I remember the cover on this album set. It was based on a fine photograph taken by Bill Huges during a Christmas concert with my group at Town Hall in New York City (1954). This same unit performed at the worlds first jazz festival at Newport and was billed as the most promising new group of the year. Shortly thereafter, our little band was honored to be one of the very first to be featured at Carnegie Hall in a concert for the people of Israel.

The album Gil Mellé Quintet/Sextet 5020 marked the beginning of Dr. Rudy Van Gelder's career as a recording engineer with Blue Note. I brought Alfred and Rudy together, the beginning of a most celebrated association.

A little faith goes a long way!
—GIL MELLE
1998