LT-1082

Blue Mitchell - Step Lightly

Released - 1980

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 13, 1963
Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Leo Wright, alto sax; Joe Henderson, tenor sax; Herbie Hancock, piano; Gene Taylor, bass; Roy Brooks, drums.

tk.4 Little Stupid (as Andrea)
tk.11 Cry Me A River
tk.14 Mamacita
tk.15 Sweet And Lovely
tk.22 Step Lightly
tk.24 Bluesville

See Also: BLP 4142

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Mamacita	Joe Henderson	13/08/1963
Sweet and Lovely	Gus Arnheim, Harry Tobias	13/08/1963
Andrea	Roger Boykin	13/08/1963
Side Two
Step Lightly	Joe Henderson	13/08/1963
Cry Me A River	Arthur Hamilton	13/08/1963
Bluesville	Sylvester Kyner	13/08/1963

Liner Notes

Blue Mitchell was an instinctive musician. Generally, he could be considered a disciple of the Clifford Brown school, but he possessed a warmth, off-handed lyricism and a casual, yet deliberate presentation that put him in that rare realm with Kenny Dorham and Miles Davis. Whether he was playing a modern jazz composition, a ballad or a straight blues, he played it convincingly and intelligently and always soulfully in the truest sense of the word.

Born in Miami, Florida on March 13, 1930, Blue entered the fifties decade in the r&b big band of saxophonist Paul Williams, who was still riding high from his hit “The Hucklebuck”. In 1952. Blue freelanced around New York appearing on Lou Donaldson’s second session for Blue Note; the pianist on the date was Horace Silver. For the next three years, he would hold a chair in the band of Earl Bostic, another jazz rooted r&b saxophonist. After a bit of freelance touring with Red Prysock and others, he returned to his native Miami.

Fellow Floridian and old friend Cannonball Adderley used Blue on the altoist’s first date (or Riverside Records in July of 1958. A few days later, Blue made the first of seven albums for that label under his own name. He also appeared on sessions led by Philly Joe Jones. Johnny Griffin and Junior Cook on Riverside.

Blue’s career took its great leap in the autumn of ‘58 when he joined the Horace Silver Quintet with Junior Cook, Gene Taylor and Louis Hayes, who would be later replaced by Roy Brooks. That band remained together until March of 1964.

During time away from the Silver group. Blue would not only record as a leader and sideman for Riverside, but make several significant appearances on Blue Note dates by Jimmy Smith, Jackie McLean and Lou Donaldson among others. The album at hand, his first as a leader for the label, is previously unissued, although it was assigned the catalog number 84142 and even listed in some catalogs. Listening to this session in an effort to seek out the exact personnel. Joe Henderson suggested that perhaps it was Alfred Lions perfectionist tendencies that held the record hack since Leo Wright is a fraction away from the proper tuning on several numbers. But that would be hair splitting, even within the high standards of Blue Note.

More than likely, the fact that the Horace Silver band broke up just seven months after the recording of this date and that Blue quickly organized a working hand with Cook, Chick Corea, Gene Taylor and Al Foster and recorded it for the label made this session immediately obsolete for the moment.

Of that band. his longest running, Horace told me recently, “That was a well rounded hand; they could play funky, hip, ballads, blues. the Latin thing, all of it...the band had a natural, commerciality about it. It wasn’t contrived. There was something about those cats that when they played funk or blues, they really played it because it was from their hearts and souls. They weren’t doing it to please the audience. They enjoyed it, and it came across that way. They were very open. overt personalities and they projected. They played it all.” Those qualities were certainly retained in the aforementioned Mitchell band that grew out of that group.

Blue Mitchell was a very good writer, but not a prolific one, so it is not surprising that the material on this date comes from other sources. Joe Henderson composed “Mamacita” and “Step Lightly” and arranged the two standards “Cry Me A River” and “Sweet And Lovely”. "Soulville” is by alto saxophonist Sonny Red, who had recorded it a few years prior on his own Blue Note; Roy Brooks was the drummer on that version as well.

“Andrea” is by Dallas guitarist Roger Boykin. Blue first recorded it under its original title “Little Stupid” on a Junior Cook date for Riverside, but that version was never released. Little Stupid was incidentally Blue’s affectionate nickname for Boykin.

Joe Henderson at this point had just signed with Blue Note months before. He and Kenny Dorham would record five albums, three under Joe’s name and two under K D’s, between April, 1963 and September, 1964. It was on the last of these. Dorham’s Trompetta Toccata, that “Mamacita” would first reach the public. Joe did not record the tune under his own leadership until several years later. He has yet to record “Step Lightly”. But Mitchell repeated the tune a year later with his working band on his first issued Blue Note album The Thing To Do. “Blue told me that that tune was very popular for him through tho years. He recorded it a few times, the last was on a Louis Bellson date,” Joe said recently.

And it is probably on this take that Joe refers to Leo Wright’s slight sharpness in relation to the rest of the musicians. Wright has a curious sound and a curious approach here, almost the missing link between Sahib Shihab and Anthony Braxton in tone.

Wright is a vibrant Texas alto saxophonist and flutist who first came to prominence during his tenure with Dizzy Gillespie’s quintet from 1959 to 1962. During ‘62 and ‘63, he freelanced and recorded as a leader for Atlantic. Just prior to thus session, he and Henderson made up the front line for trumpeter Johnny Coles’ Blue Note album. Soon after this period, he moved to Europe, ultimately setting in Berlin where he has been active in the radio orchestra and the studios as well as jazz circles.

Herbie Hancock, brought to the attention of Blue Note by his greatest booster Donald Byrd, had already been signed to the label as an artist and was beginning to pop up frequently on a variety of sessions. In May of 1963. he joined Miles Davis. His strong lyricism and natural funk compliment Blue’s approach perfectly.

Taylor and Brooks were, of course. Blue’s bandmates in the Horace Silver Quintet. After the split, Taylor would remain with Blue’s own group for n few years before joining folksinger Judy Collins. Brooks has been an active freelancer since this time, often organizing his own ensembles for tours and recordings.

The essence of Blue Mitchell is represented here, most notably in his soulful, direct solo on the easy, loping and vaguely bluesy ‘Step Lightly” and on his warm, lyrical and unsentimental work on “Cry Me A River”.

With his quintet, he recorded three fine albums for Blue Note, followed by two more excellent albums with the group expanded into a tentet. In 1969. he made his final album for the label, a blatantly commercial effort Collision in Black, which missed the mark. By then, he was living in Los Angeles, procuring some studio gigs and working in less jazz-oriented contexts. In the early seventies, he worked with Ray Charles, John Mayall and Ben Sidran among others. He continued to record as a leader, first for Mainstream, then RCA, then Impulse. The bulk of that material was designed for a more commercial audience.

But in the last two years of his life, he teamed up with Harold Land to co-lead an excellent quintet that has been preserved on one album. In the last year and a half of his life, the trumpeter’s activities had to be curtailed because of the pain and treatment required for bone cancer. I was involved with a benefit for Blue in June of 1979 when a call came from Horace Silver on a Monday night. And suddenly, the benefit became a tribute.

Original session produced by ALFRED LION
Produced for release by MICHAEL CUSCUNA
Recorded on August13, 1963 at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Engineer: RUDY VAN GELDER
Re-mix Engineer TONY SESTANOVICH

—Michael Cuscuna

Notes for the 75th Anniversary Edition

When Blue Mitchell joined Horace Silver's quintet in September 1958, he was already signed to Riverside Records. But as soon as his contract was up in 1963, Alfred Lion wasted no time signing the trumpeter to Blue Note.

This first session included Herbie Hancock, Gene Taylor and Roy Brooks (both band-mates in the Silver quintet) and an interesting front line of tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and alto saxophonist Leo Wright. Both Henderson and Wright had performed the same duties on trumpeter Johnny Coles' only Blue Note session weeks earlier.

This first Mitchell album for Blue Note was given a catalog number and listed in catalogs, but it never came out at the time. It was first issued in Japan in 1980. The reason this album did not come out at the time was because the Horace Silver Quintet disbanded in January 1964. Mitchell was quick to form his own quintet with Junior Cook and Gene Taylor, who had also been in the Silver group and newcomers Chick Corea and Al Foster.

Mitchell was, of course, concerned about getting work for his new group, so "Step Lightly" was shelved. "The Thing To Do" was their first album and became Blue's initial Blue Note release.

Nonetheless, this is a superb album that introduces "Mamacita" and "Step Lightly," two Joe Henderson compositions that later became jazz standards. And Blue's performances on "Sweet And Lovely" and "Cry Me A River" are outstanding.

Michael Cuscuna