LT-1057

Harold Land - Take Aim

Released - 1980

Recording and Session Information

Radio Recorders, Los Angeles, CA, July 25, 1960
Martin Banks, trumpet; Harold Land, tenor sax; Amos Trice, piano; Clarence Jones, bass; Leon Pettis, drums.

As You Like It
Take Aim
Land Of Peace
Reflections
Blue Nellie
You're My Thrill

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
As You Like It	Harold Land	July 25 1960
Take Aim	Amos Trice	July 25 1960
Land Of Peace	Leonard Feather	July 25 1960
Side Two
Reflections	Harold Land	July 25 1960
Blue Nellie	Martin Banks	July 25 1960
You're My Thrill	J. Gorney-S. Clare	July 25 1960

Liner Notes

HAROLD LAND

Houston, Texas deserves a very special place in the annals of music for the number of significant jazz talents it has given to the world. Consider the list: Ernestine Anderson, Arnett Cobb, Wilton Felder, Matthew Gee, Wayne Henderson, Stix Hooper, Deane Kincaide, Ronnie and Hubert Laws, Joe Sample, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson and, of course, Harold De Vance Land.

In this impressive roster, Harold's place has only a token justification, for he was in his sixth year when his family moved to San Diego. It was there that the sound of jazz made its first real impression; during his high school years, he heard Coleman Hawkins' record of Body and Soul, and nothing afterward was quite the same.

Harold took private lessons for six months or so, but essentially he was self taught. In 1946, at 18, he began gigging locally: clubs, casuals, picnics, whatever came along. New influences began to exert themselves. "I admired Lucky Thompson for his fluidity and his beautiful big round sound; then around 1948, Charlie Parker's phrasing, his sound, his harmonic conception added an entirely new dimension to the saxophone."

Land was barely out of high school when a bassist, Ralph Houston, helped him get into the musicians' union. During his early jobs, often at the Creole Palace with a trumpeter named Froebel Brigham, his close friend and musical mentor was Leon Pettis, the drummer heard on this album. At the Creole, they played floor shows and jazz sets on which such Los Angeles musicians as Sonny Criss, Teddy Edwards and Hampton Hawes would often appear. For a year or so, Harold and Pettis went on the road soaking up r & b with guitarist Jimmy Liggins and then with his brother, Joe "Honeydripper" Liggins.

After paying some more dues at the Creole Palace, Harold decided the time had come to try out the Los Angeles scene. It was 1954, and as he recalls it, "for several months I existed on crackers and peanut butter." The turning point arrived when Clifford Brown, in town with the Brown-Roach Quintet, took Max Roach to hear Harold in a jam session at Eric Dolphy's house.

Roach was duly impressed, and for the next two years Harold was on the road with the quintet. Audiences around the country were at last exposed to his sound, which displayed a drive and virility antithetical to the flabby, cool timbre then commonly thought of as the west coast sound. Family illness brought Harold home in '56.

Since then, he has worked most often in clubs around LA, with various overlapping careers: Gerald Wilson's orchestra, off and on for twenty years; collaborations with Elmo Hope; many combos, self-led or co-led with Red Mitchell, Bobby Hutcherson and most recently the late Blue Mitchell; annual visits to Las Vegas with Tony Bennett; miscellaneous studio work, doubling in recent years on flute and oboe, and composing chores.

His alliance with Bobby Hutcherson included three tours of Europe, various college concerts throughout the US and Canada and a series of fine Hutcherson albums on Blue Note, such as Total Eclipse, Spiral, Medina and San Francisco. The quintet that he led with Blue Mitchell until the trumpeter's death in June of 1979 was admirably documented by their album Mapenza on the Concord Jazz label.

This album is of particular interest to me, since it was a session that I produced in 1960 for Blue Note, released now for the first time. The group assembled for the occasion was an unusual one, most of whose members have had little or no exposure on records.

Trumpeter Martin Banks was born June 21, 1936 in Austin, Texas. His father was a trombonist with the King Kolax band. Young Banks played in the same high school band as Kenny Dorham. After moving to Los Angeles in 1953, he played a variety of local gigs with Gerald Wilson, Buddy Collette, Red Callender, Walter Benton and others. He put in four months with the Ray Charles orchestra in 1960, in addition to working off and on with Harold Land during the year preceding this session. In 1967 and 1968 Banks was in New York performing and recording under Archie Shepps' leadership.

Pianist Amos Trice was born in New Orleans on December 11, 1928, but left for Los Angeles during his second year of grammar school. He had no formal musical education, but during his early years travelled extensively as a classical singer. After Army service in 1948-9, he became interested in jazz piano and, during the next few years, racked up credits with Charlie Parker, Wardell Gray, Benny Carter, Frank Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt, and Teddy Edwards. He had been with Harold Land for a year when this session was made. In 1961 Trice and Banks appeared on alto saxophonist Jimmy Woods' first album for Contemporary Records.

Drummer Leon Pettis was born in New Haven, Connecticut, February 27, 1928. The son of a Navy man, he was raised in Annapolis, Maryland until age 16, when he moved to San Diego, Pettis was mainly self-taught, beginning his professional career at 17. After his stint with the Jimmy Liggins band that included Land, he spent eight years with trumpeter Walter Fuller and was the last drummer with Nat King Cole until Cole's death. In recent years, he has been working in San Diego.

Bassist Clarence Solomon Jones was born in Los Angeles on December 27, 1926. He studied at Westlake College and with a private teacher. After making his professional debut at 15 with a rock and roll group, he worked with Harold Land in several combos as well as with Art Pepper, Nellie Lutcher, Hampton Hawes and Al Haig. Jones, whose first love was Jimmy Blanton, died in 1963.

As You Like It is a Harold Land original, a fast boppish piece that affords the composer a chance to stretch out for several choruses. Banks' staccato trumpet recalls the early Miles Davis; Trice clearly shows his affection for Bud Powell. Jones solos effectively both pizzicato and arco. The track ends with a series of eight-, four- and two-bar exchanges between the horns and Pettis.

Aim, composed by Trice, is an interestingly constructed work in ten-bar phrases with a nine-bar bridge. You're My Thrill, the 1935 standard by Burton Lane, is given added interest here through the inclusion of the seldom heard verse. Banks comes in to join Land as he eases gently into the chorus. Trice takes over for the bridge. This cut is a characteristic example of Land's exceptional ability to get into the essence of the chord changes on a ballad.

Land of Peace is a tune that I composed and arranged especially for this session, the title being a play on Harold's name. Ironically, it was not Land's version but one by Rahsaan Roland Kirk from 1963 that was first to reach the public. The theme is played partly in unison, partly voiced. Banks contributes some of his most effective work here, playing muted, Trice does an excellent job of handling the somewhat unusual changes, as does Harold in his two choruses before the reprise of the theme.

Reflections, not to be confused with the Monk tune of the same name, is another outstanding presentation of Harold Land as both composer and soloist. It is based on a six-bar phrase with an eight-bar bridge. The horns engage in a series of fours with Pettis before the return of the theme.

Blue Nellie, composed by Martin Banks, is a minor 12-bar blues that forms an excellent base for blowing by Land, Banks and Jones. Hearing the session for the first time after many years, I was impressed by the extent to which it has withstood the test of time and curious as to why Harold's sidemen of that period never achieved any substantial recognition.

The Harold Land you will hear on this album differs not too substantially from the Harold Land who is still practicing his craft in Los Angeles as these words go to press. He has absorbed various changes that have shaken the jazz world since this record was made, but basically his style reflects the same passion, the same control and deep commitment to his art that was already evident 20 years ago. Certainly there are some ideas that he is expressing that represent the Harold Land of 1980, but essentially an artist who matures as firmly as he had by the time this session was made has no particular need to update himself. The evidence is in your hands right now.

Leonard Feather