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

BLP 4033

Dizzy Reece - Soundin' Off

Released - August 1960

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 12, 1960
Dizzy Reece, trumpet; Walter Bishop Jr., piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Art Taylor, drums.

tk.6 Yesterdays
tk.7 Our Love Is Here To Stay
tk.9 Once In A While
tk.10 A Ghost Of A Chance
tk.15 Blue Streak
tk.16 Eb Pob

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 

https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
A Ghost of a Chance	Bing Crosby, Ned Washington, Victor Young	12/05/1960
Once in a While	Michael Edwards, Bud Green	12/05/1960
Eb Pob	Dizzy Reece	12/05/1960
Side Two
Yesterdays	Otto Harbach, Jerome Kern	12/05/1960
Our Love Is Here to Stay	George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin	12/05/1960
Blue Streak	Dizzy Reece	12/05/1960

Liner Notes

DIZZY REECE has been in New York since October 1959. when he emigrated from Great Britain. At that time, he entered the tough competition for recognition that exists in New York's jazz world. True, he has had the support of Blue Note's Alfred Lion, who has recorded him, but other than that he has been in the position of any other newcomer trying to prove himself in New York.

Jobs have been sporadic but this has not discouraged Dizzy. He has patience which is bulwarked, I suspect, by a quiet but strong self-confidence that is evident even if Dizzy does not brandish it. Then, too, he feels the New York scene is stimulating. "One thing, here you can always get a good rhythm section", says Dizzy. "In Europe there are good individuals but the units are not good. Here the rhythm sections are more musically integrated."

The first jazz that attracted Dizzy in his native Jamaica was through the records of Basie band soloists Buck Clayton and Don Byas. When he later heard Gillespie and Monk, "it didn't disturb me. I thought it was a natural trend. I didn't try to analyze it. The vibrations I got were relative to my own feelings."

Incidentally, Dizzy did not get nickname because of anything connected the illustrious Gillespie. It seems that Reece was a bit of a prankster as a teenager (a certain glint in his eyes hints that he hasn't lost all his insouciance) and, as a result a friend dubbed him Dizzy.

Although his direct musical lineage comes down from Gillespie, Navarro and Clifford Brown, Dizzy Reece is an individual. "I can only say the things I live", is his credo. When Dizzy uses the word "say" in regard to his trumpet playing, it is extremely appropriate because he does talk through his horn. He is further proof that certain instruments are a continuation of the human voice. "The saxophone gets the fluidity. It's harder to do on the trumpet - the circle...", he says, referring to a continuous flow of sound, running back into itself, that saxophonists can achieve.

"The only thing that is bugging me is the mastery of the horn and you never really get that up to grave." I might add that this is a relative mastery because Reece is so conversant with his trumpet that he is able to evoke sounds which are not found in any exercise books. Sometimes he gets a bubbling, gargling sound that seems to emanate from underwater. It bean no relation to Shep fields. This and and other "vocal" effects make Dizzy's style very personal.

Dizzy states, philosophically, "Sometimes you speak fluently, sometimes you don't. But every effort must be conscious. I can sit bock and play the same things I played before and be asleep. But I don't think that way."

British critic Michael James, in reviewing Dizzy's Blues In Trinity LP 4006 wrote, "Reece is the opposite of the performer who aims only for effects he is certain of attaining ... his fondness for wide intervals and the grasp of dynamics gives his lines true dramatic strength."

Dizzy is not content to run changes. The "conscious effort" he speaks of is the father of an emotional style that has its effect on the listener in a cumulative manner. The more listen, more his power of communication is felt. It is not that he is a complicated player; he is not an obvious one.

There are places where Reece appears to be hitting wrong notes. This was my reaction when I first listened to the album. Then I thought, "An intelligent, conscientious musician wouldn't let mistakes like this pass. Could he be playing these notes on purpose?" When I asked him, he bore out my second contention.

"I'm working on quarter tones and eighth tones between the notes. I can see the relativity between Eastern music and jazz." was Dizzy" comment. "Jamaica is a cosmopolitan island with a large East Indian population. I heard their music as a child. All civilizations take different approaches but all bear relation to each other. Then, also, I heard Indian musicians, Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal, in London and was impressed by them."

With him is here one of the well-integrated rhythm rhythm sections alluded to earlier. Walter Bishop, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor were with Dizzy at the Village Vanguard in May of 1960 and this album reflects the time they spent playing together. The tunes in this set are typical of what the group was doing in the club. Dizzy explains. "We wanted to record them there but time didn't permit. This was the next best thing."

Blue Note's studio recordings never seem to suffer from the lack of a large audience. Without this stimulus, they are, nevertheless, very "alive".

From the extended opening note which implies a whole phrase, Dizzy delivers a deep, thoughtful rendition of Ghost Of A Chance. His fat sound puts one in mind of Freddie Webster at times.

Walter Bishop, who has a tender solo on Ghost Of A Chance, begins Once In A While in an out of tempo introduction in the same mood. Then Dizzy comes in, carrying the melody as the rhythm section goes into a medium bounce tempo with Art Taylor supplying a strong push. Doug Watkins' big sound is evident behind Bishop's solo. Walter begins and ends his increasingly personal interpretation of the Bud Powell idiom. In the middle segment of his solo, he uses a light, chordal approach. Back in the '40s, he was the first of the "bop" pianists to use this variation.

Eb Pab, an "I got rhythm" opus by Fats Navarro and Leo Parker, is a tune that Dizzy has played since he heard Fats' original record. Perhaps the longevity of the association explains the liberties he takes with the melody. This is one of the instances where Dizzy's new notes made me wonder at first. Here he shows an authority in handling his instrument and a confident abandon in the way he leaps and soars from one idea to the next. Bishop is intelligently hard-driving on this medium-up swinger.

It is effective the way tracks 2 and 3 on side 1 each show an increase in tempo from its predecessor. This pacing adds to listener interest. Side 2 adheres to this too, although the graduations between tracks 1 end 2 are less pronounced than on side 1.

Bishop's introduction to Yesterdays is an excerpt from Bud Powell's bridge to Bouncin' With Bud. Dizzy enters with an extremely human-voiced melody statement. His improvisation is in the same vein and perhaps the high point of the set. Bishop begins with a right hand attack and then dips into a funky chord bag, well done but not overdone, before returning the single line. (A lot of people are going to start taking notice of Bish.) Reece, with the excellent rhythm section functioning flawlessly behind him, returns to take it out.

The rhythm swings Our Love Is Here To Stay lightly but very firmly as Dizzy waxes lyrical. Bishop demonstrates how pervasive Red Garland's influence has been in part of his solo and Doug Watkins takes a neatly plucked one before Reece re-enters with the melody.

Blue Streak is a blues, recently written by Reece. Dizzy digs in from the outset and hotly in a series of building choruses in which the rhythmic variety of his phrasing plays an important part. Bish generates some wonderful stretches of straight—ahead swing in his solo.

In talking more of the New York scene, Dizzy commented on some of the people who has impressed him, in addition to the men in his group. He named, among others, tenor men Stan Turrentine and Walter Benton, pianist Tommy Flanagan and trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Booker Little.

When asked him what differences he found between New York and London besides the rhythm sections, he said. "There's a more definite approach - it's more real here."

Dizzy Reece is real too. He claims, "I don't want to be a star. I just want to contribute my part to the scene."

I think contributions will put him into some part of galaxy, whether he wants to go or not.

- IRA GITLER

Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

 

BLP 4023

Dizzy Reece - Star Bright

Released - January 1960

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 19, 1959
Dizzy Reece, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums.

tk.3 The Rebound
tk.7 A Variation On Monk
tk.11 I Wished On The Moon
tk.15 The Rake
tk.19 I'll Close My Eyes
tk.22 Groovesville

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
The Rake	Dizzy Reece	19/11/1959
I'll Close My Eyes	Buddy Kaye, Billy Reid	19/11/1959
Groovesville	Dizzy Reece	19/11/1959
Side Two
The Rebound	Dizzy Reece	19/11/1959
I Wished on the Moon	Dorothy Parker, Ralph Rainger	19/11/1959
A Variation on Monk	Dizzy Reece	19/11/1959

Liner Notes

ON October 21st, 1959, the Liberte docked in New York and deposited a valuable shipment of British goods. Alphonso Son Reece had arrived at his third home and was about to begin a significant new phase of bis career.

The life of Dizzy Reece, which began Jan. 5, 1931 in Kingston, Jamaica, was marked by no spectacular events during the first two segments, spent in Kingston and London. Because a favorable reaction on American soil is equated with success in jazz circles, and because in this country be can associate constantly with talent of his own caliber, it was logical that Alfred Lion of Blue Note should take such an immense interest in his work and give him added encouragement in coming to the States. The reception given his first Blue Note LP (Blues in Trinity, 4006, recorded in Paris with an Anglo-American personnel) had indicated that Reece’s ability, already observed by many American jazzmen visiting London or Paris, would assure him of economic security and further artistic maturation.

Within a few weeks of his arrival, Dizzy opened at Wells’ Restaurant in Manhattan with an American rhythm section to drive and inspire him. Looking back on the years that had led to this pivotal event, Dizzy spoke of the past, talking slowly and gently, a tall, bearded, quiet-mannered man with the lilting cadences of a West Indian accent still strong in his voice.

"My father was a pianist; he played in silent movie theatres, but I hardly ever got to hear him play. My inspiration came from the street parade bands in Kingston. I was only three years old when I started running out trying to follow them — 1 would disappear for hours until they had to send the police for me. Then when I was about seven I would stay out late at night just to listen to a trumpet player called Gabriel, who was working in a club. I would wait around just to be able to pack up his instrument for him, just to get hold of the trumpet.

“I wished I could explain how I felt the first time I heard the sound of the trumpet. The uncanny part about it is hearing the trumpet in a brass band. Coming from a brass band it is usually loud and brassy, but I didn’t hear it like that at all. I have been trying ever since to play it the exact way. I hear it, but it’s still a long way from perfection. The first stylist I really listened to was Buck Clayton on the old Basie records, but I always tried to get my own sound; you have to be your own man.”

It was while he was at high school, mastering first the baritone horn and then the trumpet, that Dizzy was given his nickname, which he says was not inspired by Gillespie, who was unknown at the time. As soon as his schooling was finished Dizzy decided that the motherland had to be his destination.

"It was a dismal arrival at Tilbury Docks, but I knew that there would be something for me in England. The modern movement had just begun there and things were beginning to happen. I had some trying times in Paris, but in Tottenham and various parts of London they had a lot of modern jazz clubs.

England and France provided most of Dizzy‘s living for a decade, with occasional side trips around the Continent. The third stage of his career was augured at meetings in London with Frank Wolff and Alfred Lion, and with some tapes sent to the latter by Tony Hall whom they had long respected as a tireless worker for the cause of modern jazz in England. Tony, who is a writer, critic and disc jockey, was the first to take an interest in Dizzy and to record him.

The first day in New York was almost as depressing as the first view had been at Tilbury. “I hadn’t been off the boat an hour when I almost cut off my finger trying to move a trunk. I had it bandaged and couldn’t play. Anyhow, at least I could get to hear some music right away — Gigi and Max at the Five Spot; Blakey at Smalls’; and then I went to see Dizzy Gillespie and played a set for him at the Metropole.”

For his first American recording session Dizzy chose the sidemen, all but one of whom were strangers to him. He had met and worked with Art Taylor in Paris (he was heard on the previous Reece LP), but as Dizzy says, Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers weren’t complete strangers to him, as he had already had “soul” contact with them before. "It worked out even better than I expected; I developed a very close feeling with Hank on time date.”

Dizzy was impressed by the relaxed, informal conditions in the recording studio here and especially by the invaluable experience and know-how Rudy Van Gelder puts into a recording. The session, recorded November 19, 1959, opens with a theme written by Dizzy for a British picture, Nowhere To Go.

“I wrote and played the whole score for the film — The Rake is one of four themes,” says Dizzy. The slow. minor melody uses an abrupt, Rollins-like sixteenth-note effect in the fifth measure and goes into double-time at the end of each eighth-measure passage. Reece’s solo sets the pattern for his concept throughout the album: basically he swings, hears the changes well plays with, a feeling for continuity and for dramatic and dynamic contrast. I would agree with Tony Hall and the others who have found in him no one specific influence. Mobley’s sound, on this track and throughout the album, has more assurance and warmth than ever, and Wynton cooks consistently impelled by the relentless drive of Chambers’ and A. T.’s backing.

I'll Close My Eyes, an old pop song, is given a melodic workout by Dizzy, before Hank enters abruptly to take over for two discursively eloquent choruses. After Dizzy’s two choruses and Wynton’s one, Chambers offers a solo in which the attack and melodic concept have much in common with the early and indomimitable Oscar Pettiford.

Groovesville, except for a little riffing at the end, has no theme: it is simply an uppish ad lib blues, started by piano with the bass in two and gradually cooking up, with the aid of the leader, a solid London broil. Perhaps because the blues brings out the best in any good jazzman (and the worst in any who hasn’t got it), Dizzy on this track offers his best solo of the album. His occasional explosions into a phrase that showers down from a high note, the naturally right time with an almost imperceptible delay on a note here and there, the occasional laying on a sixth or ninth — there are many elements here that, when we get to know him better, may emerge as important facets of the Reece style.

The Rebound is titled for the manner in which the outgoing choruses on the tenor, piano and bass solos are prodded by ensemble punctuations; hear it and you’ll get it. The improvisations are based on a minor-mode version of the regular 12.bar blues, but the opening and closing theme is 13 measures long.

I Wished on the Moon, a song popularized by Billie Holiday 25 years ago, follows what has become a firmly established practice: the melody is heard, more or less informally, with the bass playing in two; then the soloist moves into ad lib gear as the bass shifts to four. Hank’s time is conspicuously cool; Wynton’s solo, surprisingly, seems to be conceived in terms of the melody rather than the changes, at least for most of the first 16.

A Variation On Monk struck me as an odd title until I noticed the grace-notes-a-sixth-lower effect at the end of each eight measures, a typical Monk gambit. Dizzy conceded that this is the only essentially Monkish thing about it, but adds that “it’s the way it’s played — the phrasing can be very humorous.” Basically the melody might be classifled as early bop. On this one A.T. has his only solo workout.

The emergence of Dizzy Reece as an important new name in jazz should help to draw further attention to the fact that good jazz music can be produced by a person born to do so, regardless of latitude or longitude. Subjected to the environment he could find during the past few years in London or Paris, there was no obstacle to the development of a completely mature jazz style on the part of any musician with the soul, the technique and the desire for self-expression. Dizzy Reece has these qualities in abundance, and even in the rat-race of the New York jazz world he now faces, there isn’t a chance in the world that they will be neglected or lost.

As British critic Kenneth Tynan of The New Yorker said: “It took London a long time to find someone who had moved with the times on trumpet. In Dizzy Reece we found him — and as soon as we discovered what we had amongst us, he left us. We miss him, but our loss is America’s immeasurable gain.”

—LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of the Encyclopedia of Jazz)

Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

 

BLP 4006

Dizzy Reece - Blues in Trinity

Released - April 1959

Recording and Session Information

Decca Studios, London, England, August 24, 1958
Dizzy Reece, trumpet #1,2,4-6; Donald Byrd, trumpet #5,6; Tubby Hayes, tenor sax #1-3,5,6; Terry Shannon, piano; Lloyd Thompson, bass; Art Taylor, drums; Tony Hall, producer.

1001 Blues In Trinity
1002 Color Blind
1004 'Round Midnight
1005 I Had The Craziest Dream
1007 Close-Up
1008 Shepherd's Serenade

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date	Duration
Blues in Trinity	Dizzy Reece	24/08/1958	06:45
I Had the Craziest Dream	Mack Gordon, Harry Warren	24/08/1958	03:04
Close-Up	Dizzy Reece	24/08/1958	10:38
Side Two
Shepherd's Serenade	Dizzy Reece	24/08/1958	06:36
Color Blind	Dizzy Reece	24/08/1958	06:02
Round About Midnight	Thelonious Monk	24/08/1958	04:46

Liner Notes

ABOUT two years ago, I sent some records of Dizzy Reece to Miles Davis. Miles must have been impressed. Because he took the trouble the next day to ‘phone critic Nat Hentoff and say “there's a great trumpeter over in England: a guy who's got soul and originality and, above all, who’s not afraid to blow with fire”. Miles must have played those sides to a number of his friend. For when the invasion of Europe by American modern jazzmen began a few months afterwards, one of the first questions they asked on reaching Paris was “where’s this cat, Dizzy Reece, that Miles told us about?”

Though Dizzy was officially based in Britain, he’d spend much of his time in Paris. There, in 1956, he would play with Kenny Clarke and Don Byas. Then the Basie band arrived and an affiliation began between Dizzy and Frank Foster and Thad Jones. I once heard the two trumpeters together at a private party in London. I’ve seldom heard Thad play better. But he didn’t cut Dizzy. There was a tremendous respect between them and and awareness of the other’s talents.

Then Miles himself came over to Paris and told Dizzy that Sonny Rollins had heard his records. “If you ever go to the States, Sonny says you can have a job in his band any time”. With Miles on this “Birdland Show" tour was the Modern Jazz Quartet. Percy Heath, Connie Kay (or Klook) and Milt Jackson (generally on piano) would often play with Dizzy at the Club St. Germaine.

The next Americans to arrive included Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt and Oscar Pettiford. They, too, had heard about Reece. Again, there were some stimulating sessions on the Left Bank in the early hours. And the Dizzy Reece legend grew.

Finally, in the late summer of 1958, Donald Byrd and Art Taylor came to the continent for some jazz festivals and club dates with a band comprising Bobby Jaspar, Doug Watkins and pianist Walter Davis. Dizzy was in Paris from Cannes here he’d been playing with the French big band Kenny Clark had worked with.

"We’d heard about Dizzy from Miles and Sonny (Rollins)”, said Byrd. "So we were looking out for him. He came into the club one night and sat in. I don’t know what it was, but things didn’t work out too well that night. But he came in again the next night and blew like mad. It was a good session”.

As you may have gathered, Paris has become an international jazz centre. There, American and European musicians would blow together in an environment very different from that in New York or London. The Americans would find in Paris a release from many of the domestic and social tensions and problems they experience at home. French musicians found the presence of their American idols stimulating and encouraging. For British jazzmen, here was an opportunity to hear the Americans in less formal surrounding than the concert hall to which their British appearances were confined - and occasionally to sit in with them.

These recordings were made while Byrd and A.T. were in Paris. Dizzy was there with the big band. The Canadian bassist, Lloyd Thompson was working at a club with Zoot Sims. The British musicians, tenorist Tubby Hayes, and pianist Terry Shannon were on their annual vacation.

Let's quote from Byrd again: “I first heard Tubby when I spent a weekend in London. Man, he can play. I’d like to have thrown some really fast tempos at him, just to get him mad. But he’d have made them.”

When discussing a musician new to the American record-buying public. It’s customary for the annotator to write at length about his various influences. I find this very difficult with Diz. I\e been listening to him for five years now. I’ve watched his technique improve. At one time. it was a question of digging what he was thinking more than what he played. But now his thoughts are coming out of the bell of his horn with clarity. To me, he has always sounded like just himself. “Sure I’ve listened to lots of trumpet-players” he says. “But I just fed my music this way. My playing is like my way of life. It’s a religion”.

He’s basically a “hot” player. Sometimes his lines are simple: at others, naggingly multi-notedly complex. “But if people are looking for something mysterious or sensational in my playing they won’t find it. I just like to play”. He has a tremendous — often starkly dramatic - feeling for dynamics. This sense of drama in his playing is accentuated by his use of unusual intervals and accenting of notes.

As I’ve been Dizzy’s recording manager and friend for four years now. Alfred Lion sent me a test pressing of this LP so that I could write the liner. Dizzy hadn’t heard the tapes since the session, so he came over to my pad to hear the tests. His reaction? “There’s lots of music there. It sounds good. Better than a lot of records I’ve heard. AT. sounds just great. Hr’s ridiculous, man. A long beat.”

Taking the tracks in the order on the album:

Blues In Trinity is a most striking Reece original. ‘These are my changes”, says Dizzy. “Basically. it’s a slow blues. The bass plays double-time. The drums are three times up. So you get a 1.2.3 feeling. The soloist can chose his tempo and the piano has a lot of freedom.” Note that Diz takes his solo slowly before Tubby Hayes comes out snorting fire and fury. After the piano solo, Dizzy has a most striking chorus, employing very few notes, with the changes just passing beneath him.

I Had the Craziest Dream was a pop song of World War II. It’s a moving ballad vehicle for Dizzy, who plays a chorus and a half. “This tune’s been with me all my life. A Jamaican trumpet player named ‘Bubbles’ always played this tune. A sharp-looking cat, sort of Mexican-looking. He’s a good friend of AT. Lives next dooer to him in New York. That’s why I called it on this session. Terry plays nice changes here. And listen to A.T.!”

Close-Up is another Reece blues, but of a different hue than Trinity. Don Byrd. who was visiting at the session, makes the first of two guest appearances on this track. Dizzy is first, then Tubby. then Byrd. with Dizzy leading off again after Terry’s piano spot. The trumpet exchanges which follow remind me in places of an LP Byrd made in 1955 with Joe Gordon. Says Diz: “This was the Swinger. A nice, relaxed groove. No panic. A first take. But there’s a hungriness there. You listen! That Tubby! Byrd plays very good”. So does Dizzy.

Shepherd’s Serenade is an up-tempo 32-bar (2 16’s) Reece romp. Byrd played on this one, too. The way he and Arthur work together here is quite uncanny. There’s an empathy between them that is the result of much work together and understanding of each other. Dizzy takes off first. ‘There’s a real earthy feeling. It’s very natural”. A.T.’s exchanges here are a gas. And Shannon wails as much as anyone.

Color Blind was originally written by Dizzy two years ago in Paris. It’s a catchy 32-bar theme of two 16-bar sections. This was the first tune of the date and Reece and Hayes take fine solos.

‘Round About Midnight is probably the most beautiful jazz ballad ever written. Tubby Hayes uses it for his tenor feature. His sound is softer on this track and his solo is very moving, especially around the coda. Terry and Lloyd accompany him with intelligence and sensitivity.

Here, then, is Dizzy Reece’s first Blue Note album, And he’s right: there’s a lot of music here. He is a musician of sincerity and originality who should go to America as soon as possible (“I want to go so much”). I’m convinced that, in the New York environment, he could easily become one of the world’s great jazz trumpeters. If you don’t believe me, ask Miles!

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES

Alphonso Son “Dizzy” Reece: born in Kingston, Jamaica on January 5, 1931. Son of a former “silent films” pianist. First instrument : baritone horn at 11. Switched to trumpet at 14. His schoolmates included altoist Joe Harriott and tenorist Wilton “Bogey” Gaynair. Came to Europe via London in 1948. In Paris (49-’SO), sat in with Don Byas, Jay Cameron. Worked Germany and Holland with drummer Wallace Bishop, Sandy Mosse and Byas. Returned to London in ‘54, working the clubs mainly with Quartets and a spell with Tony Crombie’s band. Spent 1956.7 in Paris, Portugal and London. In 1958, he worked in France with Jacques Helian’s big band and was resident at London’s Star Club. Currently gigging in London clubs, with occasional visits to France.

Edward Brian “Tubby” Hayes: born in London, England on January 30, 193S. Studied violin at 8 (his father was a well known BBC sessioneer), switching to tenor at 12. Turned professional at 16 with Kenny Baker’s Sextet. Spent four years on the road with the Vic Lewis, Ambrose, Jack Parnell big bands. From April ‘SS - September ‘56, he led a storming 8-piece band; then a pianoless Quintet. Took up vibes alter encouragement from Vic Feldman. Has been co-leader (with tenorist Ronnie Scott) of The Jazz Couriers since April ‘57 at London’s Flamingo club. Now equally adept on baritone, alto and flute. Main favourites and influences: Parker, Stilt, Getz, Rollins, Mobley, Coltrane. Griffin.

Terence “Terry” Shannon: born in London, England on November 5, 1929. Began playing at 7. Since 1955 has been ‘the” sympathetic section man and soloist for British jazznen. A founder member of the Jazz Couriers. Likes Horace Silver, Bud Powell, John Lewis, Sonny Clark.

Lloyd Thompson: born in Ontario, Canada in 1934. His brother, a tenor-player. leads a hand in and around New York. Came to Europe with Pia Beck Trio. Has worked in Paris with Allen Eager, Byas, Kenny Clarke, Al Levitt, Art Simmons, Zoot Sims etc. Currently in London with Dizzy etc.

—TONY HALL

Cover Photo by BILL PENNY
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER