LT-994

Jackie McLean - Consequence

Released - 1979

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 3, 1965
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Jackie McLean, alto sax; Harold Mabern, piano; Herbie Lewis, bass; Billy Higgins, drums.

1687 tk.3 Consequences
1688 tk.4 Bluesanova
1689 tk.10 Tolypso
1690 tk.11 Slumber (aka Soft Touch)
1691 tk.12 Vernestune (aka The Three Minors)
1692 tk.16 My Old Flame

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Bluesanova	Jackie McLean	December 3 1965
Consequence	Jackie McLean	December 3 1965
My Old Flame	Johnston-Coslow	December 3 1965
Side Two
Tolypso	Jackie McLean	December 3 1965
Slumber	Lee Morgan	December 3 1965
Vernestune	Jackie McLean	December 3 1965

Liner Notes

JACKIE MCLEAN

As more and more of Jackie Mc Lean's Blue Note recordings emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that his collaboration with that label and the men who made it work (particularly producer Alfred Lion and engineer Rudy Van Gelder) was a major event in the history of modern music.

The altoist's association with Blue Note began in January 1959 when the first of the two dates that make up "Jackie's Bag" was recorded, and it ended in September 1967 with the "Demon‘s Dance" session. During that period. which took McLean from age 26 to age 35, he and a supporting cast of trumpeters (Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Charles Tolliver, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Blue Mitchell, Tommy Turrentine), pianists (Sonny Clark, Harold Mabern, Freddie Redd, Kenny Drew, Walter Davis Jr., Walter Bishop, Herbie Hancock, Larry Willis), bassists (Paul Chambers, Herbie Lewis, Eddie Khan, Cecil Mc Bee, Butch Warren, Larry Ridley), and drummers (Tony Williams, Billy Higgins, Art Taylor, Philly Joe Jones, Clifford Jarvis, Jack DeJohnette), not to mention such figures as tenormen Hank Mobley and Tina Brooks, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, and vibraharpist Bobby Hutcherson, produced a body of work whose breadth, strength, and beauty is simply inexhaustible.

And that legacy has been growing. In addition to 15 McLean-led Blue Note albums that were issued soon after they were recorded and the dates on which he was a prominent sideman (such as Morgan’s “Leeway” and “Cornbread" and Moncur's “Evolution"), there are now two double albums of previously unissued McLean from the 1960s (“Jacknife" and “Hipnosis") plus this intensely creative session.

Why those dates were not issued the first time around is a minor mystery. Perhaps Lion felt they were not up to Blue Note standards, although listening to them now that is hard to believe. A more likely reason is that once McLean had joined the modal, expressionistic wing of the avant garde (with “Let Freedom Ring” in 1962 and “One Step Beyond” and ” Destination Out" the following year) Lion was reluctant to issue the altoist’s more straightahead dates, even though he continued to record them. Thus “Consequence” emerges after a 14-year delay to take its rightful place among McLean's most substantial achievements.

As evidence of this often gleeful combativeness, notice the rise in musical temperature when Lee and Jackie trade choruses after Mabern’s solo on "Bluesanova" with Jackie echoing Lee’s characteristic bent notes; the ferocious exchange of fours between the two horns and Billy Higgins on the title track; and the way, on that same piece, Lee jumps into his solo the very instant Jackie's ends, following him so closely that it’s hard to tell where one man leaves off and the other begins. This music wasn’t called hard bop for nothing.

The rhythm section is "up" too, with Mabern always a strong accompanist. And as for Billy Higgins, while it's hard to single out any one of his many fine collaborations with McLean, his work here is superb. Listen, for example, to the way his time begins to “rotate” the second trip through the head of “Bluesanova” ("playing into the next bari" as Buell Neidlinger once described it); to the "flam" feel of his fours on “Consequence;" and to his shifts there from 4-4 (behind Morgan). to his solo breaks. to a vamp rhythm (behind McLean).

Immediately striking here is the fact that the late Lee Morgan is a full participant - more so, perhaps, than any horn man with whom Mc Lean collaborated during the 1959-1967 period. At other times the altoist had given prominent soloistic and compositional responsibilities to other players (particularly Tolliver and Moncur); but they were, if something more than disciples, certainly under McLean's wing. And for all their varying levels of skill and maturity, Byrd, Mitchell, Hubbard, etc. always seemed to be working within emotional territory McLean had defined.

But Morgan turns "Consequence" into an exuberant joust between equals - perhaps because his musical outlook so closely resembled McLean‘s and perhaps because his fiery temperament demanded no less. If the album had been issued under the trumpeter's name, no one, I think, would have been the wiser.

Somewhat overshadowed in critical esteem by Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, and Ed Blackwell, Higgins was and is a great drummer and never more so than when he worked with McLean.

An even more neglected player is Herbie Lewis, who apparently got lost in the post-Scott La Faro backwash even though his sense of time was something special. “He sure can swing," said McLean in the liner notes to "Let Freedom Ring," and Lewis’ walking line on Rene from that date has always been a wonder to me, a primal turbulence strong enough to support an elephant. For further evidence of Lewis‘ stature, check out any track on Consequence Harold Land’s The Fox (Contemporary), and Stanley Turrentine's absolutely crazy Blue Note album "That’s Where It's At."

As the comments above suggest, Bluesanova and Consequence are the cream of this date, performances that rank with anything McLean or Morgan produced on Blue Note. Yet there is nothing here that is less than very good, with the possible exception of Jackie’s solo on "My Old Flame" After a lovely angular half-chorus, he merely decorates the melody, intimidated perhaps by the tune's Charlie Parker associations. (I recall a heartrending McLean performance of “My Old Flame" - November 1978 at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase - that must have finally laid that tune to rest for him.)

There are echoes here, too, from the post-Parker jazz past. Morgan’s Bluesanova is closely related to his Raggedy Ann recorded on Lee’s 1961 Riverside album "Take Twelve." And the brooding Slumber is a translation into 4-4 of A Waltz for Fran from that same date, although this version is more effective, with McLean’s solo a lovely example of the way he can "visualize" the structure of a piece and construct a line that is a spontaneous abstraction of the entire tune.

Also worth mentioning is the way Lee and Jackie play the heads together. Such ensemble niceties weren't granted much attention at the time because the music was felt to be essentially soloistic; but I can think of few things in jazz more fascinating than the way McLean and Morgan perfectly blend their sounds (each so totally individual) to create a third sound that has the emotional richness of both and something more besides. Perhaps that can be felt best on Slumber, where the literal and figurative harmony of the horns is truly touching. Hard bop the music was called, but what term can describe such a gentle sharing of gifts, such mutual knowledge of sorrow?

In other words, "Consequence," and all of Jackie McLean's music, is about feeling. Or rather it is feeling, plus the landscape in which feeling must exist. As critic John Litweiler once wrote about the altoist: “His music has experienced great moments, but we really don't seek greatness from him. Instead we rediscover our own passions, emotions, feelings, however flawed, vulnerable, or broken they are, along with the intensity of an unyielding force, the raw human power that endures.”

by Larry Kart

Notes for the 2012 CD Edition

It is fortunate that Alfred Lion recorded Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan so frequently in the mid '60s. Every session was a gem. These men were at the top of their game as improvisers and composers.  

I have no idea why this album didn't come out. It has a great Blue Note cast, great playing and great compositions, many of which would have easily found their way onto jazz radio at the time. Suffice it to say that if someone wants to hear the Blue Note sound at its best, this wonderful session would be an ideal example.  

By the way, for tune title detectives, McLean's "Vernestune" had previously been recorded as "The Three Minors" and Morgan's "Slumber" as "Soft Touch."  
 
- Michael Cuscuna