LT-1089

Ike Quebec - Congo Lament

Released - 1981

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 20, 1962
Bennie Green, trombone; Ike Quebec, Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; Sonny Clark, piano; Milt Hinton, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.4 Congo Lament
tk.12 Que's Pill
tk.15 See See Rider
tk.22 B.G.'s Groove Two
tk.27 I.Q. Shuffle

See Also: BLP 4103

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
B.G.'s Groove Two	Bennie Green	January 20 1962
Congo Lament	Bennie Green	January 20 1962
Que's Pills	Stanley Turrentine	January 20 1962
Side Two
See See Rider	Ma Rainey	January 20 1962
I.Q. Shuffle	Ike Quebec	January 20 1962

Liner Notes

IKE QUEBEC

Ike Quebec was a fast learner. Born in Newark, New Jersey on August 17, 1918, he began his career as a dancer and pianist. Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines and Louis Armstrong were his strongest musical influences at the time. In 1942, he picked up the tenor saxophone, and by 1944, he was clearly an important, powerful voice on the instrument.

1944 to 1946 were very active years for Ike. He held the solo tenor chair in Cab Calloway's big band, recording with them on five occasions in '45 and '46 for CBS. He worked among the be-bop pioneers, playing with Kenny Clarke and contributing two tunes to Thelonious Monk's first Blue Note date. He gigged with Frankie Newton and Roy Eldridge as early as '43 and later worked with Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald and his mentor Coleman Hawkins. He appeared as a sideman on dates by Hot Lips Page, Eldridge, Trummy Young, Jonah Jones, Carter, Sammy Price and others. And more significantly, he recorded six sessions under his own leadership, one for Savoy, the rest for Blue Note. From his first date in July, 1944 came his biggest hit Blue Harlem.

Like his influences Hawk and Ben Webster, Quebec spoke through his horn in a powerful, vibrant big tone. And like them, his sturdy, lyrical lines projected with a passionate sense of aesthetics, warmth and vulnerability as well as strength. From such men, one note could tell a life story of juggled joy and sadness.

Like his contemporary Gene Ammons, Ike was neither under the spell of Prez or Bird nor entrenched in swing. He could play in any genre and make it work magnificently. But by the early fifties, the jazz audience had divided into the be-bop and cool camps, leaving swing behind. Ammons, Illinois Jacquet and others sought a new public through a more jumping, r&b approach. Ike remained a maverick and paid the price.

He worked intermittently with Cab Calloway from 1949 to 1951. In 1952, he cut a rather lackluster date for HiLo (now Savoy). The result of his steadfast and uncategorizable individuality was years of obscurity. He once referred to playing for many cabaret shows in Canada during the fifties, and Ira Gitler recalls seeing him at the Cafe Bohemia for a brief gig in 1955.

Ike maintained a close relationship with Alfred Lion of Blue Note. And in July of 1959, Blue Note brought the tenor saxophonist into the studio to cut eight tunes for release as singles. The reaction must have been favorable, because Ike appeared on a Jimmy Smith session the next March from which came Open House (Blue Note 84269) and Plain Talk (Blue Note 84296) and cut another singles session in September of '60.

One year later, Quebec was in full swing, active, involved and playing better than ever. In September '61, he wrote a tune for Leo Parker's comeback LP. In November, he appeared on one track on Sonny Clark's Leapin' And Lopin' and recorded his first full LP Heavy Soul. Within weeks, he recorded his next two It Might As Be Spring and Blue And Sentimental.

By 1962, Ike was clearly in overdrive, playing better than ever and working for Blue Note in a&r and talent scout capacities. He kicked off the year With the excellent album at hand. And while all five selections are sextet tracks, it should be noted that three beautiful performances by just Ike and the rhythm section were recorded at the end of this January 20 session.

If Quebec is out of the big-toned Hawkins school, Pittsburgh born Stanley Turrentine's voice is definitely deep in the heart of Texas, that is to say, clear, hard and soulful. Quebec's tone tends to carry the characteristics of the horn's lower register throughout its entire range, while Turrentine does the same thing With the horn's upper register.

To avoid any confusion as to who might be playing what, the solo scenario is as such: On B,G.'s Groove Two, Congo Lament (both by Bennie Green) and Turrentine's Que's Pill, the order is Quebec, Green, Turrentine, and Clark, On See See Rider. the order is the same except that Ike takes a stop time solo after Clark. On I.Q. Shuffle, the order is Turrentine, Green, Quebec, Clark, Hinton and a chorus of fours with Blakey that starts with Quebec, then Green, then Turrentine.

Like Quebec, Bennie Green was an individual who straddled the stylistic fence between swing and bop. He first learned the art of improvisation from Dizzy Gillespie when they were in Earl Hines' wartime band. He came to prominence in Charlie Ventura's 'Bop For The People' aggregation. After another stint with Hines and significant record dates with Gene Ammons and Miles Davis, Bennie organized his own sextet and quickly had a hit with Blow Your Horn and I Wanna Blow, both catchy jump styled tunes. He created an identity with these and Latin and blues originals.

In 1958, he signed with Blue Note and recorded four albums in ten months. In the early sixties, a few more albums followed. During 1964 and 1965, he teamed up with Sonny Stitt for several gigs and two recordings, Toward the end of the decade, he joined the Duke Ellington Orchestra. But by the early seventies, economics had driven him to the house bands of Las Vegas. On March 23, 1977, he died of cancer.

The pianist on several Green albums of the late fifties and early sixties was the extraordinary and tragically neglected Sonny Clark. Born near Pittsburgh, Clark made his way to the West Coast in 1951 and soon made a strong impression on the scene there. He moved to New York in 1957 and quickly became a Blue Note regular on dates by such artists as Hank Mobley, Tine Brooks, Lou Donaldson, Curtis Fuller, Johnny Griffin, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Stanley Turrentine, Clifford Jordan and more. He also turned out a consistent flow of outstanding albums of his own. His personal struggle with drugs took him off the scene on several occasions and finally took him off it permanently in 1963.

Milt Hinton was in the Calloway band with Quebec during 1944, '45 and '46. They also worked together at that time on various freelance jobs and on three of Ike's record dates. So it should be no mystery that Hinton would be present on most of Quebec's sixties albums. At this time, Ike told Nat Hentoff, "We know each other so well musically that we don't have to say anything to each other. A blink of the eye will do it."

Art Blakey is synonymous with Blue Note and one of the greatest, most inspiring drummers to ignite the music. Somehow he and Quebec had never previously recorded together. He and Clark share an amazing sympatico here that was equally in evidence exactly one week earlier when they recorded Grant Green's Nigeria (Blue Note LT-1032).

This unusual combination of people was an auspicious way to start 1962 for Quebec. And he was in overdrive. In February, he recorded the recently released With A Song In My Heart. In March, he appeared on Grant Green's Born To Be Blue (just now issued in Japan). In April, he arranged and played on singer Dodo Greene's My Hour Of Need. In September came a still unreleased Latin single date by Grant Green and some sides with Ms. Greene. In October, he cut his Soul Samba LP And in November, there were a few more tunes with Dodo. Throughout the year, he was active in most Blue Note sessions and signings.

But in December, he finally succumbed to the cancer that had started in his lungs and began to spread. As Rudy Van Gelder told me recently, "Ike always played beautifully, even at the end, when he was dying...I mean, literally dying."

The February 28, 1963 issue of Down Beat headlined its news section "Two great losses within four days: Two Jazzmen Die In New York City." On January 1 3, Sonny Clark died; the official reason given was a heart attack. On January 16, Ike Quebec died after five weeks in the hospital where he was being treated for cancer. Quebec was 44, Clark was 31, and the music on this album was a few days short of a year old.

—Michael Cuscuna