5-22019-2

Dizzy Reece - Comin' On

Released - 1999

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 3, 1960
Dizzy Reece, trumpet, congas; Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie Merritt, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.2 The Case Of The Frightened Lover
tk.11 The Story Of Love
tk.18 Ye Olde Blues
tk.22 Tenderly
tk.25/28 Achmet

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 17, 1960
Dizzy Reece, trumpet, congas; Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax #1-5; Musa Kaleem, tenor sax, flute #1-5; Duke Jordan, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Al Harewood, drums.

tk.4 Goose Dance
tk.6/7 Sands
tk.11 Comin' On
tk.17 The Things We Did Lase Summer

Not Released

tk.12 Achmet
tk.14 The Case Of The Frightened Lover

Track Listing

Title	Author	Recording Date
Ye Olde Blues	Dizzy Reece	April 3 1960
The Case Of The Frightened Lover	Dizzy Reece	April 3 1960
Tenderly	J. Lawrence-W. Gross	April 3 1960
Achmet	Dizzy Reece	April 3 1960
The Story Of Love	Carlos Almaran	April 3 1960
Sands	Dizzy Reece	July 17 1960
Comin' On	Dizzy Reece	July 17 1960
Goose Dance	Dizzy Reece	July 17 1960
The Things We Did Last Summer	J. Styne-S. Cahn	July 17 1960

Liner Notes

DIZZY REECE came to jazz the long way around. Born in Kingston, Jamaica on January 5, 1931 Dizzy was exposed to music early on: His father was a pianist for a movie theatre that showed silent films. Hearing parade brass bands at an early age, the sound of the trumpet captured his soul. Eventually records by Basie with Buck Clayton and Don Byas drew him to jazz. He took up the baritone horn at 11, switching to trumpet three years later. In 1 948, the desire to play jazz and the growth of the new music known as bebop drew him to a larger playing field — Europe. By 1954, with a well-developed style very much his own and a big, brilliant tone, he settled in London.

Jazz DJ, journalist and producer Tony Hall, a man who still has incredibly open and interested ears, began producing an excellent series of albums by Reece (as well as Tubby Hayes and others) for the Tempo label in 1955. Some of Reece's Tempo masters were issued in U.S. on Imperial and Savoy, but with little impact. Tony sent records to friends in America. At least two, Miles Davis and Alfred Lion, were impressed. Lion arranged for Hall to produce a Reece session for Blue Note with label regulars Donald Byrd and Art Taylor in the lineup. Because of inflexible, protectionist laws enacted by the British musicians' union, the August 24, 1958 session held at Decca Studios in London had to be portrayed as being done in Paris. The great reception that the album Blues In Trinity received gave Reece the courage to move to New York, a place where he'd been yearning to make music, where he'd find rhythm sections that could not only keep up, but also challenge him.

He arrived on October 21, 1959 and was at Rudy Van Gelder's studio, making his second Blue Note album, Star Bright on November 19. Taylor was again on drums and the group was completed by Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers. A few days prior, Reece recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, playing congas on tunes for a date that was ultimately released in 1980 as Africaine; it was Wayne Shorter's first session. Blue Note even staged a welcoming party at Well's Bar in Harlem for the new arrival to these shores, a rather extravagant gesture for a struggling, independent label.

Dizzy's next session on April 3, 1960 produced the first five tracks on this CD, issued here for the first time. It was also the first Blue Note appearance by Stanley Turrentine, then with Max Roach and soon to become a Blue Note artist. The rhythm section belonged to the Jazz Messengers of that time: Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt and Art Blakey. Reece's originals show a jazz composer with an unusual gift for melody. "The Case Of The Frightened Lover" is particularly memorable. "Achmet," which opens with Reece on congas and Blakey trading solos and engaging in dialogues, is a minor tune that's derived from an Algerian melody. "Ye Olde Blues" is just that. Reece has a marvelous sense of construction, letting Turrentine's tenor solo lead things off before the theme is played. It might have been this tenor solo that inspired Lion to use Turrentine on Jimmy Smith's Back At The Chicken Shack/Midnight Special session three weeks later. The non-originals are a bright treatment of "Tenderly" and the Spanish song "The Story Of Love."

A month later, Dizzy did a quartet date with Walter Bishop, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor, which was promptly issued as "Soundin' Off." Then on July 17 came the session that closes this CD Stanley Turrentine returns, but tenor saxophonist Musa Kaleem is added to the front line. The rhythm section is Duke Jordan, Sam Jones and Al Harewood. While these proceedings probably led to Reece and Turrentine as the front line for Duke Jordan's Flight To Jordan the following month, nothing from this date was issued until now.

Musa Kaleem, who'd played with Mary Lou Williams and Fletcher Henderson as Orlando Wright in the early '40s, was on the original Art Blakey's Messengers date for Blue Note in 1947. After years away from music, he played flute on a Tiny Grimes-Coleman Hawkins album for Prestige in 1958 and then toured and recorded with James Moody. After this Reece session, little is known of his professional activities except that Horace Silver recorded his "Sanctimonious Sam" in 1963 (the track remained unissued until 1978).

Kaleem plays flute on the melody of "Goose Dance" and is the first tenor soloist on that tune and "Comin' On." He has a bigger, more hollow sound than Turrentine, who solos first on Reece's sensational "Sands." Both lay out for the quartet reading of "The Things We Did Last Summer."

Clearly, the April 3 session had come into doubt as worthy of release by this time. Reece tried "Achmet" and "The Case Of The Frightened Lover" with this sextet, but the results were frayed, truly rejected performances. The first attempts proved far more successful.

Dizzy's association with Blue Note faded after 1960. In 1962, he made "Asia Minor" for Prestige, re-recording "Achmet" and "The Story Of Love." Lack of steady work in New York made him a transoceanic commuter by necessity. In 1969, a particularly active year for recording, he was on Dexter Gordon's Day In Copenhagen in March, Hank Mobley's The Flip, done in Paris in July and on an unissued Andrew Hill big band date at Van Gelder's studio in November.

Despite his considerable talents as a player and composer, Reece has only made four albums as a leader since the sixties: From In To Out with John Gilmore for Futura in Paris in 1970, Possession, Exorcism, Peace for Honey Dew in the early '70s, Manhattan Project for Bee Hive in 1978 and Blowin' Away with Ted Curson for Interplay in the same year.

The paucity of recorded music by this unique trumpeter makes these unissued Blue Note sessions all the more valuable. And tunes like "The Case Of The Frightened Lover" and "Sands" remind us what a talented composer he is as well.

— MICHAEL CUSCUNA, 1999