BLP 5023

Kenny Drew - New Faces - New Sounds

Released - 1953

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, April 16, 1953
Kenny Drew, piano; Curly Russell, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN469-3 tk.4 Lover Come Back To Me
BN470-2 tk.7 Yesterdays
BN471-0 tk.8 Everything Happens To Me
BN472-1 tk.11 Spring Will Be A Little Late
BN473-2 tk.14 Be My Love
BN474-1 tk.16 Drew's Blues
BN475-0 tk.17 Gloria
BN476-1 tk.19 Stella By Starlight

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Yesterdays	Kern-Harback	April 16 1953
Stella By Starlight	Young-Washington	April 16 1953
Gloria	Kaper-David	April 16 1953
Be My Love	Brodszky-Cohn	April 16 1953
Side Two
Lover Come Back To Me	Hammerstein-Romberg	April 16 1953
Everything Happens To Me	Dennis/Adair	April 16 1953
It Might As Well Be Spring	Rodgers-Hammerstein	April 16 1953
Drew's Blues	Kenny Drew	April 16 1953

Liner Notes

BLUE NOTE has presented a number of inspired and inspiring modern jazz piano artists in recent years, several of whom were virtually discovered and launched in the record field by this label. Among them are Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly, Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. This is no less true of Kenny Drew, a native New Yorker who was playing around town for quite some time more or less ignored by the name musicians until Howard McGhee used him on a Blue Note session in January 1950.

Before that time Kenny had gone through a long period of training, starting in 1933 when he was only five years old. After private study, classical training and attendance at Music and Art High School, he began playing professionally soon after graduation by joining Pearl Primus's interpretive dance group.

It was not until after this apprenticeship that Kenny found the opportunity to develop his interest in jazz. After his disc debut with McGhee and consequent acceptance by the big timers, he was heard in clubs or on records with everyone from Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and Lester Young to Milt Jackson, Sonny Stitt and Buddy DeFranco. It was with Buddy's quartet, touring the country and recording frequently in 1952 and '53, that most jazz fans became familiar with his name and style.

Kenny's solo debut in this set is notable for the colorful variety of the performances, ranging from the brilliant elaboration of Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays" to the swinging simplicity of his own "Drew's Blues." Particularly impressive is his unusual choice of tempos, exemplified by the jump treatments of "It Might As Well Be Spring" and "Be My Love" - the latter might aptly be described as the answer to Lanza!

His rhythm support is entrusted to the capable limbs of Art Blakey, the Pittsburgh born drummer who went through the later years of the swing era (he was Fletcher Henderson's band of 1939) to become one of the foremost percussionists of the new school (Billy Eckstine's band of 1944 to '47); and the eminent bassist Dillon "curly" Russell, another youthful veteran swing graduate, whose early work with the Don Redman and Benny Carter bands led to his participation in the pioneering Gillespie-Parker records that launched bop in 1945.

Kenny's work is cast in the modernist mold, but it seems to owe allegiance to no one model; on the contrary, a careful hearing of these sides will reveal that Kenny has already developed his own personality at the keyboard. He is a proud addition to the growing ranks of the modern jazz piano family.

—LEONARD FEATHER
Associate Editor, Down Beat Magazine