BLP 5065

Kenny Dorham - Afro-Cuban

Released - 1955

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 29, 1955
Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Jay Jay Johnson, trombone; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Horace Silver, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Art Blakey, drums; Carlos "Patato" Valdes, congas; Richie Goldberg, cowbell #1,3.

tk.3 Minor's Holiday
tk.5 Basheer's Dream
tk.7 Afrodisia
tk.8 Lotus Flower

See Also: BLP 1535

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Minor's Holiday	Kenny Dorham	March 29 1955
Lotus Flower	Kenny Dorham	March 29 1955
Side Two
Afrodisia	Kenny Dorham	March 29 1955
Basheer's Dream	Gigi Gryce	March 29 1955

Liner Notes

Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Jay Jay Johnson, trombone; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Horace Silver, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Carlos "Potato" Valdes, conga; Art Blakey, drums.

McKINLEY HOWARD DORHAM is a trumpet player who was taken for granted.

For several years, mainly the halcyon years of the bop movement, Kenny was Mr. Available for every trumpet chair in every band and combo. If Dizzy wasn't around and Howard McGhee was out of town, there was always Kenny. And so it went from about 1945 to '51, always in the shadow of those who had been first to establish themselves in the vanguard of the new jazz.

Slowly, in the past few years, Kenny has emerged from behind this bop bushel to show the individual qualities that were ultimately to mark him for independent honors. Numerous chores as a sideman on record dates for various small companies led to his inclusion in the important Horace Silver Quintet dates for Blue Note (BLP 5058, 5062), and, as a result of his fine work on these occasions, to the signing of an exclusive Blue Note contract and his first date for this label as a combo leader on his own.

If the Kenny Dorham Story were ever made into a movie (and the way things are going in Hollywood at the moment, don't let anything surprise you) it would begin on a ranch near Fairfield, Texas on August 30, 1924. The actor playing Kenny as a child would be shown listening to his mother and sister playing the piano and his father strumming blues on the guitar.

Then there would be the high school scenes in Austin, Texas, with Kenny taking up piano and trumpet but spending much of his time on the school boxing team; and later the sojourn at Wiley College, where he played in the band with Wild Bill Davis as well as majoring in chemistry. In his spare time Kenny would be seen making his first stabs at composing and arranging.

After almost a year in the Army (during which his pugilistic prowess come to the fore on the Army boxing team) Kenny went back to Texas, joining Russell Jacquet's band in Houston late in 1943 and spending much of 1944 with the band of Frank Humphries.

From 1945 to '48 Kenny was on the road with several big bands, including those of Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington in that order. Then he spent the best part of two years playing clubs as part of the Charlie Parker Quintet. Lurking on the edge of the limelight occupied by the immortal Bird, he began to lure a little individual attention as something more than the section man and occasional soloist he had been for so long. One of his important breaks was a trip to Paris with Bird in 1949 to take part in the Jazz Festival.

Settling permanently in New York, Kenny became a free-lance musician whose services alongside such notabilities as Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Mary Lou Williams gradually impressed his name and style on jazz audiences.

For much of the past year Kenny has been working frequently around the east with a combo that constitutes the nucleus of the outfit heard on these sides — Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Art Blakey.

Mobley is an Eastman, Ga. product, born there in 1930 but raised in New Jersey. Making his start with Paul Gayten in 1950, he rose to prominence with Max Roach's combos off and on from 1951-53 and with Dizzy in '54. Cecil Payne, a 32-year-old Brooklynite who studied with Pete Brown, has been prominent on the iazz scene ever since he returned from the Army in 1946 and is best known for his association with Dizzy (1946-9), Tadd Dameron, James Moody and Illinois Jacquet.

Carlos "Potato" Valdes, a newcomer to Blue Note and to the U.S. music scene, has only been over here from Cuba for a few months. Dizzy first told Kenny about him, and "Little Benny" Harris dug him up and brought him to Kenny's rehearsal. ' 'He gassed them all", recalls Alfred Lion succinctly.

For this session with its Afro-Cuban rhythmic motif, Kenny says "I tried to write everything so that the rhythm would be useful throughout and would never get in the way." As a consequence, the Cuban touch sounds as if it is a part of the whole, rather than something that has been superimposed on a jazz scene, as is sometimes the case.

Minor's Holiday didn't get that title only because of its minor key; it was also named for Minor Robinson, a trumpet player in New Haven. A mood-setting rising phrase characterizes the opening chorus, leading into a loosely swinging, pinpoint-toned trumpet solo that shows, like all his work on this date, the high degree of individuality Kenny has achieved. Mobley and Jay Jay also have superior solos.

Lotus Flower, after Horace's attractive intro, shows how the Cuban percussion idea can be applied effectively to a slow, pretty melody. Jay Jay's solo, though short, has a melancholy quality that complements the mood set by Kenny's delicately phrased work here.

Afrodisia is a title that has been used before, but this is a new composition. The theme and interpretation recall somewhat the Gillespie approach to material of this type. Like the patriot who is plus royaliste que le roi, Kenny and his cohorts achieve a more interesting and more Cuban atmosphere here than you will hear on many performances emanating direct from Havana. The "Potato" is really cooking on this one.

The session ends with an original commissioned by Kenny from Gigi Gryce, the talented ex-Hampton reedman. Basheer's Dream has a minor mood of singular intensity sustained by Kenny, Hank and Jay Jay, with Valdes and Blakey allied as a potent percussion team and Horace, the Connecticut Cuban, contributing some discreet punctuations.

Kenny Dorham's Blue Note debut as a leader marks an important phase in his career. After hearing these sides, the fans who for so long had been only vaguely aware of his real capabilities will learn that here is a soloist and a composer whose sound and pen are destined from now on to play a lively and stimulating role on the jazz stage.

—LEONARD FEATHER
(author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz)

Cover Design by GIL MELLÉ
Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF

Technical Data; The greatest care has been given to every step in the manufacture of this record. The finest available recording equipment from the U. S. and Europe has been utilized; Series 300 tape recorders, Telefunken microphones, British Grampian cutter and Scully lathe, This album is recorded with a standard R.I.A.A. recording characteristic. The most modern factory methods and the purest vinylite material insure incomparable pressings.

Recording Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder