BLP 5030

Lou Donaldson/Clifford Brown - New Faces - New Sounds

Released - 1953

Recording and Session Information

WOR Studios, NYC, June 9, 1953
Clifford Brown, trumpet; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Elmo Hope, piano; Percy Heath, bass; "Philly" Joe Jones, drums.

BN489-1 tk.2 Bellarosa
BN490-3 tk.6 Carvin' The Rock
BN491-1 tk.8 Cookin'
BN492-0 tk.9 Brownie Speaks
BN493-0 tk.10 De-Dah
BN494-0 tk.11 You Go To My Head

Session Photos

Rehearsal for the June 9 session

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Carving The Rock	Hope-Rollins	June 9 1953
You Go To My Head	Coots-Gillespie	June 9 1953
De-Dah	Elmo Hope	June 9 1953
Side Two
Brownie Speaks	Clifford Brown	June 9 1953
Cookin'	Lou Donaldson	June 9 1953
Bellarosa	Hope-Rollins	June 9 1953

Liner Notes

By LEONARD FEATHER
(Associate Editor, Down Beat)

THE five piece band on these eight performances is more than just a five piece band. By this I do not mean that, like every other small band in jazz history, it claims to sound twice its size. The quality rather than the quantity of the sound is what counts, in this or any other kind of music; but. in the particular instance at hand, the element that gives an added touch of excitement is the relative newness of all the artists provided.

Lou Donaldson is probably already familiar to some of you through his superb work on Blue Note 5021, featuring his own quartet and quintet; yet this 27-year-old North Carolina alto sax wizard is emphatically a new star. In the present set he is featured both as soloist and as composer, the latter talent being very impressively represented by Cookin', a lightly swinging demonstration of his culinary capacities.

The three members of the rhythm section, who worked as a separate unit for Elmo Hope's piano solo LP, Blue Note 5029, furnish a cohesive undercurrent throughout all six numbers. Hope shines in both solo and sectional roles, while "Philly" Joe Jones' percussive persuasion and the faultless beat of Percy Heath's bass again furnish the elegant modern beat you would expect.

For Clifford Brown, this session is a first — his initial recording date as a soloist.

New trumpet players of quality in the modern jazz field have not been too numerous - so Brownie's advent is doubly welcome. A product of Wilmington, Del.. he received his first trumpet from his father on entering senior high in 1945 and joined the school band shortly afterward.

It was only a year or so later that the mysterious world of jazz chord changes and began to shed its veil for Brownie. A talented musician and jazz enthusiast named Robert Lowery is given credit by Brownie for the unveiling.

When he graduated in 1948. the teen-aged trumpeter began playing gigs in Philadelphia and around the Eastern seaboard. That same year, he entered Delaware State College on a music scholarship, but there was one slight snag: the college happened to be temporarily short of a music department.

He stayed there a year anyway, majoring in mathematics, and taking up a little spare time by playing some Philadelphia dates with such preeminent bop figures as Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, J. J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. He acquired considerable inspiration and encouragement from Navarro, who was greatly impressed with the youngster's potentialities.

After the year at Delaware State, Brownie had a chance to enter a college that did boast a good music department, namely Maryland State. They also had a good 16-piece band, and he learned a lot about both playing and arranging until one evil evening in June 1950, when he was involved in a car crash on his way home from a gig.

For a year after that. Clifford Brown had plenty of chances for contemplation but not many for improving his lip. It took almost a year, plus some verbal encouragement from Dizzy Gillespie, to set him back on the path from which he had been so rudely sideswiped.

He had his own group in Philly for a while. then joined the Chris Powell combo, with which he was working at Cafe Society when these sides were made. There followed a stint with Tadd Dameron in Atlantic City, after which he joined the band with which evert rising young star seems to work sooner or later, Lionel Hampton's.

Appropriately enough. it is on his own composition, Brownie Speaks, that this spirited youngster shines most brilliantly. After exposing his own theme to the usual opening chorus unison workout, he sets sail for three choruses of unflagging improvisation in a peppery, staccato style that have the stamp of an individual personality.

Clifford's melodic contours at times are reminiscent of Miles Davis', yet his tone and attack are blunter, more emphatic, and his harmonic imagination is in a class with that of the late, great Navarro. The continuity of his solo lines is astonishing, placing him at the very top rank of contemporary trumpet stylists.

The other five items in this set give Brownie Speaks plenty of competition. Each displays one facet or another of the style of this enterprising youth. just 23 years old, who already has escaped from the narrow channels of imitative playing into the wider stream of musical originality. Carving The Rock makes an interesting comparison with the version Elmo Hope recorded at another session, as a solo, also for Blue Note. And You Go To My Head illustrates how both Donaldson and Brown blend their ideas with those of the ballad-smiths.

De-Dah and Bellarosa, like most of these performances provide an overdue reminder of a fact that had escaped many musicians: the simple small-band format that made Dizzy and Bird famous — just trumpet and alto unison theme, solo choruses, and theme to close — is still not stale. If it's done right, it can be as fresh and stimulating as when bop brought it into being. And, with Lou Donaldson and Clifford Brown on the scene, it's certainly done right in this case.

Cover Design by JOHN HERMANSADER
Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF