BLP 5021

Lou Donaldson - New Faces - New Sounds

Released - 1952

Recording and Session Information

WOR Studios, NYC, June 20, 1952
Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Silver, piano; Gene Ramey, bass; Arthur Taylor, drums.

BN440-1 tk.2 Roccus
BN443-1 tk.9 Lou's Blues
BN442-4 tk.11 Cheek To Cheek
BN441-2 tk.12 Things We Did Last Summer

WOR Studios, NYC, November 19, 1952
Blue Mitchell, trumpet #2-4; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Silver, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN457-0 tk.1 Sweet Juice
BN459-1 tk.8 Down Home
BN460-1 tk.10 The Best Things In Life Are Free
BN458-5 tk.12 If I Love Again

See Also: BLP 1537

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
If I Love Again	Oakland-Murray	November 19 1952
Down Home	Lou Donaldson	November 19 1952
The Best Things In Life Are Free	DeSylva-Brown-Henderson	November 19 1952
Sweet Juice	Horace Silver	November 19 1952
Side Two
Cheek To Cheek	Irving Berlin	June 20 1952
Roccus	Horace Silver	June 20 1952
Things We Did Last Summer	Jule Styne-Cahn	June 20 1952
Lou's Blues	Lou Donaldson	June 20 1952

Liner Notes

By LEONARD FEATHER
(Associate Editor, Down Beat)

THE indirect impact of World War II on the entertainment world and its members produced many remarkable results. Not the least of these was the number of new musicians who emerged as stars as a result of their training while in orchestras of the armed forces.

Lou Donaldson was one of these musicians. It was in the Navy, while he was still in his teens, that he learned to play saxophone; it was while he was stationed at Great Lakes that he started to dig Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie while in Chicago on a pass; it was here that he acquired his orientation in the direction of bop and formulated the style you hear on these selections.

Born in Badin, N. C. in 1926, son of a preacher and a music teacher, Lou studied music first with his mother, took up the clarinet at 15, the year he entered Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, N. C. He returned to this college after his Navy stint, and when Dizzy's band played a dance in Greensboro one night, Lou sat in with the band; Dizzy complimented him and advised him to come to New York.

Lou came here in 1950 and completed a course at the Darrow Institute of Music. He worked with combos at Minton's, Birdland, Le Downbeat and the Paradise, jammed with such men as Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt. He met Horace Silver at a rehearsal studio one day and they struck up a friendship that has produced the mutually beneficial results heard on this LP.

Lou is married and has two children; this means that he has been obliged to make a living by playing a brand of music much more "commercial" than the genuine and exciting solos he recorded for Blue Note.

The eight numbers presented here were made at two sessions a few months apart. At one of these dates a promising trumpet man from Earl Bostic's band, Blue Mitchell, was added, but for the most part the spotlight is on Lou, with occasional time out for some excellent Silver sounds at the keyboard.

Though his main influences have clearly been Diz and Bird, Lou has enough individual personality to make it obvious to any trained ear that he has outgrown mere imitation. His alto style combines fluency and resourcefulness with a biting, distinctive tone quality.

His choice of material is well balanced. There are two simple excursions on the traditional 12-bar blues (Down Home, Lou's Blues); two Silver originals (Sweet Juice and the haunting Roccus); two familiar standards (Best Things In Life and Cheek to Cheek); and two old songs that are slightly less familiar.

It is in the second choruses of Best Things and Cheek to Cheek, after he has outlined the melody with only slight variations in the first chorus, that Lou's improvisational talent reaches its peak. At least, those were the passages that happened to impress me most; but the quality and variety of his work is so impressive overall that there will be many different "favorite solo" choices among the fans who listen to this remarkable collection.