BLP 4190

Frederick Roach - All That's Good

Released - August 1965

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 16, 1964
Conrad Lester, tenor sax; Freddie Roach, organ; Calvin Newborn, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums; Marvin Robinson, Phyllis Smith, Willie Tate, voice.

1444 tk.8 Blues For 007
1445 tk.15 Busted
1446 tk.22 Loie
1447 tk.32 Cloud 788
1448 tk.33 All That's Good
1443 tk.45 Journeyman

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Journeyman	Freddie Roach	October 16 1964
All That's Good	Freddie Roach	October 16 1964
Blues for 007	Freddie Roach	October 16 1964
Side Two
Busted	Harlan Howard	October 16 1964
Cloud 788	Freddie Roach	October 16 1964
Loie	Kenny Burrell	October 16 1964

Liner Notes

YOU never need a road map to find soul people. Anywhere you travel you have only to look for the double parked cars, little brown children running (seemingly everywhere), windows thrown wide open in summer emitting sounds of blaring radios and containing the heads of more little brown children, some laughing or crying or delivering messages from headquarters...."SKEETER...SKEEEETA, MOMMA SAID TO COME UPSTAIRS." Somewhere (from the schoolyard, I think) comes a voice "SHADUP...I'M COMING."

As always in every soul center, there's "the scene," "the avenue," "the strip," consisting of stores...well let's see...there's the candy store where the sluggers hang out. The candy is old and dusty, and on a ledge in the window you can see the brown newspapers, some six months old. But of course, snuff is a moving item, also loose cigarettes (penny a piece). But the real function is to take those choice numbers for the "Negro sweepstakes."

Next door, the barber shop, '*Baldy Williams' place" where the town is surveyed by the barber in the first chair who has time on his hands now that the young boy in the last chair has gotten all the young customers to "gas" their hair. So now Baldy's function is to entertain the customers as they sit under the dryers (smile) with news of who hit the digit this week — dialogue:

  Baldy: '"Did y'all heat 'bout Sonny hittin' foi three dolla's?" 
  Customer: "1 thought it was only twenty-five cents." 
  Baldy: i'You mean tha's all he had left when that broad he got was through." 

Then there is Old Doc Rivers, 'been pushin' pills in the corner drug store for twenty years. Beans the counterman has been there for ten of those years, started as a delivery boy, but now he's just as good at giving people what they think they need as Doc is.

Of course there is the "814 Club" where everyone hangs out. Cross corner of Soulville. You Would see everyone if you stood there enough, for everyone passes through there during the day. The bartender affectionately known as "Evil Eye" mainly because he could look so mean at a troublemaker that the guy would get the message and leave. To get to the back, you pass through a door marked "Family Entrance." It is usually crowded with people (unrelated) dancing the "slop," "jerk," or those other soul dances.

Around the corner, in the alley between Hogan's Hardware and Arnie's Liquor Store, the guys gather to sing the latest rhythm and blues hits. They form a Circle, arms on each other's shoulders, they sing, carefully avoiding the eyes of those listeners standing nearby, stopping only long enough to take a swig from the half gallon wine jug, and to laugh self-consciously at their impromptu harmonies.

But usually Soulville center is that little store front church always popping up where the rents are low. The windows are painted, usually white, or have colored cellophane. There is a painting on the window, Christ on the cross, the shepherds tending the flock. The sign above the door proclaims:

  The Chruch Of God in Christ 
  Rev. R. E. Walker Minister 

and tacked to the door a poster: "This SUNDAY ONLY. The Willing Workers of C.O.G.I.C. will present The Dixie Humming Birds and The Five Blind Boys in a battle of song. Donation $1.00." Passing there this Sunday you would hear the singing Just A Closer Walk With Thee. You would hear the natural harmonies soaring out onto the street. The rhythm of hands, clapping, and tambourines playing that familiar upbeat which seems to impel you to stop and listen to the music. And so the idea for this album was born, a collection of tunes representing the culture in Soultown. Not a particular place, but dedicated to the soul centers everywhere.

The voices you hear are Phyllis Smith, soprano, Willie Tate, alto, and Marvin Robinson, baritone.

They are heard here singing together for the first time, and the natural approach they have to this material proves that they, as all of us, have roots that run so deep that it would be impossible to run away from them, but then who's running? For remember...All That's Good.

—FREDERICK ROACH

Cover Photo by RONNIE BRATHWAITE
Models; GRANDASSA MODELS
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

BLP 4168

Freddie Roach - Brown Sugar

Released - December 1963

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, March 19, 1964
Joe Henderson, tenor sax; Freddie Roach, organ; Eddie Wright, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

1314 tk.4 Next Time You See Me
1315 tk.8 Brown Sugar
1316 tk.19 Have You Ever Had The Blues
1317 tk.22 All Night Long
1318 tk.27 The Midnight Sun Will Never Set
1319 tk.29 The Right Time

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Brown Sugar	Freddie Roach	19 March 1964
The Right Time	Jerry Herman	19 March 1964
Have You Ever Had the Blues	Harold Logan, Lloyd Price	19 March 1964
Side Two
The Midnight Sun Will Never Set	Dorcas Cochran, Quincy Jones, Henri Salvador	19 March 1964
Next Time You See Me	Earl Forest, William G. Harvey	19 March 1964
All Night Long	Curtis Reginald Lewis	19 March 1964

Liner Notes

IT WAS RAINING as we arrived at the recording studio. A soft warm rain. Not enough to really bother anyone. Just enough to make the earth a darker brown, and polish the streets to a high gloss.

The sounds of the nearby highway mixed with a steady dripping from the roof of the studio on a garbage can lid below. Providing a sort of natural set of drums. I stood in the rain listening. Bop bap du bap du bap bap.

Somewhere a siren added itself to this strange orchestra. Then another, and another. The ghostly trio fading away in diminuendo down the highway. Leaving only the drums. Bap bop du bop du bap bap. I stood listening and thinking about what we had decided to try to do tonite...my thoughts slipped back to that night at the dance ...where

From the bandstand I watched the people dancing. A sea of swaying, bobbing heads. Militarily together, as if tied with rope or chain. Heads thrown back they stared off into the smoke filled ceiling, or at the balcony peopled with those without partners...the table watchers...the wallflowers...

As I watched, some people formed circles, inside which the better dancers were showcased. Urging them on with much hand clapping and shouting, until they, exhausted, fell back, allowing two more to take their place.

The air was alive with sights and sounds. In a corner of the floor I watched a couple hover, out of view almost. Like birds not fully certain of their wings. They made short trips to the dance floor, returning to their "nest' to practice.

A feeling was in the air. A happy feeling that lit up the faces of those who danced. Those faces shining with perspiration wore a look of complete abandon. Not caring for the moment about troubles or problems, their bodies quivering under smiles that seemed to promise "after the dance."

I watched that multitude of people pulsing, boiling, melting, looking for all the world like sweet fudge. I thought this is my favorite dessert — Brown Sugar. If only I could make an album that had this feeling.

But how can you capture this feeling? In discussing this with Alfred Lion (Pres., Blue Note) we both agreed that standards and show tunes were not the answer. To get to the "soul" I decided to do show soul tunes.

Brown Sugar was written with this in mind. I really pictured the dancers in my head. I saw them as they danced first the twist to the first twelve bars. Then switching to the Bop for the second twelve and eight bar turnback. Then back to the twist, I could see them so plainly that instead of saying "One More Time" at the end, I say "Now where you think you're going girl" because I can see the girls heading back to their seats.

Next is The Right Time. Takes me back to Detroit where I first heard Ray Charles do it. I remember how he and the Rayettes electrified the place with this tune. The ensemble chord corresponds with the word Baby! shouted by the Rayettes.

Have You Ever Had The Blues. A tune done by Lloyd Price with the big swinging bond behind him.

The Midnight Sun Will Never Set was written by the wonderful, soulful Quincy Jones. I heard this tune done by Sarah Vaughan, and the beauty of it has made it a regular part of my repertoire.

Next Time You See Me is a rhythm and blues tune I picked up from juke boxes in various clubs I have worked.

All Night Long was written by Curtis Lewis and the soul in this tune does not stop with its melody for in the lyrics I find:

 Never heard her speak a single word of love 
 Never knew her favorite song 
 'Cause she speaks to me in dreams 
 ...I dream 
 All Night Long 

Whether we succeeded in cooking our "soul pie" I shall have to leave to you. But everything was right in the "Blue Note Kitchen." Along were my regular chefs, Eddie Wright, Clarence Johnston. We were joined by a young man from Lima, Ohio, Joe Henderson. Proud baker of two "pies" of his own: Page One (Blue Note 4140) and Our Thing (Blue Note 4152).

And what happened that rainy night in March is contained between these cover sheets. A few ounces of black plastic grooved with the mood of an evening spent playing the blues.

—FREDDIE ROACH

Cover Photo by RONNIE BRATHWAIIE
Cover Design by REID MILES
Model: CLARA LEWIS BUGOS
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

75th Anniversary Reissue CD Liner Notes

In 1961, Freddie Roach, who at age 30 had been freelancing in the New York-New Jersey area for 12 years, joined Ike Quebec's group and gained exposure through his appearances on Quebec's "Heavy Soul" and "It Might As Well Be Spring." Alfred Lion signed the organist to a two-year contract with Blue Note during which time he made five distinct and high-quality albums.

"Brown Sugar" was his fourth album for the label, and like his previous effort "Good Move," he built the album around his regular trio with guitarist Eddie Wright and drummer Clarence Johnston with some special guests. On "Good Move," he added Hank Mobley and Blue Mitchell to the band and chose an interesting program of songs.

Here he adds Joe Henderson and selects an equally intriguing range of material from Quincy Jones's "The Midnight Sun Will Never Set" to R&B classics from Ray Charles ("The Right Time") and Lloyd Price ("Have You Ever Had The Blues"). Typically, Roach's music never panders or shows off. His music is soulful but subtle and well-rounded.

Michael Cuscuna

BLP 4158

Freddie Roach - Good Move

Released - April 1964

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 29, 1963
Freddie Roach, organ; Eddie Wright, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

tk.3 'T Ain't What You Do
tk.13 It Ain't Necessarily So
tk.22 Pastel
tk.34 I.Q. Blues

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 9, 1963
Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor sax; Freddie Roach, organ; Eddie Wright, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

tk.53 When Malindy Sings
tk.55 Wine, Wine, Wine
tk.62 On Our Way Up
tk.65 Lots Of Lovely Love

Session Photos

Freddie Roach

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
It Ain't Necessarily So	Gershwin	29 November 1963
When Malindy Sings	Brown, Dunbar	09 December 1963
Pastel	Erroll Garner	29 November 1963
Wine, Wine, Wine	Freddie Roach	09 December 1963
Side Two
On Our Way Up	Freddie Roach	09 December 1963
T Ain't What You Do	Oliver, Young	29 November 1963
Lots Of Lovely Love	Richard Rodgers	09 December 1963
I.Q. Blues	Freddie Roach	29 November 1963

Liner Notes

AS his two previous Blue Note albums (Down To Earth, 4113, and Mo' Greens Please, BLP4128) proved Freddie Roach is a distinctively incisive organist. Unlike too many of his colleagues on that potentially aggressive instrument, Roach plays with a sinewy clarity of line and a refreshingly pungent sound. As this album further demonstrates, Roach, moreover, is capable of expressing widely diverse moods and is also as astutely tasteful an accompanist as he is a soloist.

The presence of Blue Mitchell and Hank Mobley is in the nature of a musical reunion with Freddie Roach. Both Mobley and Roach grew up in New Jersey, and early in their careers, they worked together often. “I’ve always wanted to do a date with Hank,” says Freddie, “but this is the first tine it's happened. You know, Hank, because of his having been with Art Blakey and Miles Davis, is usually associated with advanced jazz, but I’ve always been aware of how deep Hank’s roots are. You listen, for example, to his solo on Wine, Wine. Wine and you can hear how far down he can go.”

This is also the first occasion on which Freddie has recorded with Blue Mitchell, the long-time front line stalwart with Horace Silver. “I’ve played a lot with Blue though.” Freddie points out. “He used to come by the Tuesday night session. at Club 83 in Newark, and we had some real swinging times. There are some musicians — and Blue is one of them - who show how capable they are as soon as they pick up their horns on a session. They always know what to do, in backgrounds as well as solos. Blue is just a natural born musician.”

Clarence’ Johnston. Freddie's regular drummer, has been on the two preceding Blue Note albums by Roach. His experience has included work with. among others, James Moody and Harry “Sweets” Edison. “Clarence,” Freddie emphasizes, “is one of the most solid drummers I know. When you’re playing organ. you need a cat like that — someone who can really lay it down and hold it there for you but who, at the same time, can listen to what’s going on, feed you, and not get in the way.

Guitarist Eddie Wright has been with Roach intermittently for the past decade. His virtues, Freddie observes, are “that he’s both a fine rhythm guitarist and a superior accompanist. He can add a lot of those little extra notes that I would play myself if I could get to them. The best way I can describe why we fit so well together is that if I were playing the piano, my left hand would sound like what he’s doing.”

Freddie chose the opening number, It Ain’t Necessarily So, because he had been attracted to it for a long time. “Jazz musicians,” he notes, “often shy away from that tune because of its unorthodox structure, but I always dug it, and I especially like the message of the song. It’s saying that in all aspects of life, you’ve got to look beneath appearances. You can’t take things for granted. It’s a spoof, hut it’s also telling something true.” On this, as on Pastel, T’aint What You Do and I. Q. Blues, Freddie is heard without the horns.

In his work on It Ain’t Necessarily So, Freddie demonstrates the characteristic freshness of his voicing, the resilience of his beat, and the singularity of his imagination. What also distinguishes him from most other jazz organists is that even at the most forceful tempos, there is a singing quality to his playing — a buoyant lyricism that also lead his rhythm section accompanists to move with more suppleness.

When Malindy Sings is a provocative Oscar Brown setting of a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Freddie heard performances of it by Oscar and also by Abbey Lincoln. At the time of the recording, the "freedom movement" was, as it has continued to do, swelling in numbers and fervor. “You can’t be aware of what’s going on in civil rights,” says Freddie, “without being affected by it. And so, I was drawn to this song by a Negro composer and a Negro poet — a song that tells of the pride one can take in being Negro.”

“I also like the way Oscar writes.” Freddie continues. "His lines are very simple, very direct and very bluesy. This particular song isn’t a blues in form but it’s blues in feeling.” Both Blue Mitchell and Hank Mobley solo with appropriate emotional directness and with a litheness of line that is exactly right for this tale of how persuasively Malindy sings.

Pastel is a composition from relatively early in Erroll Garner’s career. It has long been one of Fred(lie’s favorites among the Garner originals. “Yet,” he notes, “I somehow never got around to play it publicly. When we were going over ballads for this album, however, I remembered it. I think it’s as beautiful as Misty and perhaps even more attractive. What drew me to it were Erroll’s strong, simple lines and that spell of romanticism that’s so much a part of the tune.” Note, incidentally, the gently glowing solo by Eddie Wright.

Wine, Wine, Wine, an original by Freddie, is a number he often uses in clubs to focus an audience’s attention. “Since it begins,” he explains, “with the horns playing by themselves, a feeling of anticipation is set up. The audience wants to know what my answers are going to be, and invariably they participate in the experience. Basically, the form of Wine, Wine, Wine is church-rooted, and as you listen you can begin to hear a choir. It’s in the tradition of the old ‘shouts’ the answering back and forth and the complete abandonment afterward.” The title is meant to connote a feeling of joyfulness. “It means.” says Freddie, “something good, like good wine. Something so good that the title has three wines in it rather than only one.” The performance is one of the most infectious of all of Freddie’s recorded performances so far as all of the participants share in Freddìe’s ebullient spirits.

On Our Way Up, another composition by Freddie, was written on the day (August 28, 1963) of the March to Washington for Jobs and Freedom. "The title,” Freddie underlines, “means exactly what it says. We are on the way up. If you’ll notice, in the bridge, although the structure is quite simple, judged on a note-for-note basis, the voicings intensify the sounds to show that something really is happening in ‘the movement.’ “ In form, this is a jazz march, but it is a march which signifies the determination among increasing numbers of Negroes throughout the country that what A. Philip Randolph calls “the unfinished revolution” will be won. The firmness of this belief is reflected in the disciplined emotion which suffuses the solos of Hank Mobley, Blue Mitchell, and the leader.

Freddie relates the mood of T’Ain't What You Do to the similar puckish irreverence of It Ain’t Necessarily So. ‘I felt that way myself, as I started to play it,” Freddie adds, “and that feeling was further heightened because, as you play, you inadvertently hear the lyrics inside your head and they affect what comes out.” The performance illustrates the playful side of Freddie’s musical temperament. A hard swinger on driving tunes and a romanticist on ballads. Freddie also possesses a resilient wit which fuses easefully with the lightness of touch and tartness of sound of which he is capable on the organ.

Lots of Lovely Love is from Richard Rodgers’ No Strings. “I wanted to include it.” Freddie recalls, “because it’s built in cycles and therefore, there are so many things you can do with it. The main changes I made were in the syncopations. I smoothed them out to give it more of a jazz feeling.” Obviously, Hank Mobley and Blur Mitchell also found the song congenial for spirited jazz improvising.

I.Q. Blues was written by Freddie for the late Ike Quebec, an old and close friend. "We were going to record it together,” says Freddie, “but somehow, although we rehearsed it, we never put it on record. It has a very personal feeling attached to it. I put it together slowly, and was very pleased that Ike liked it. It’s not in strict time form. At the beginning, for example, instead of playing a bass line, I play a vamp with the melody line going against it. The beginning is in 4/4, but we move into 3/4 in the bridge. Since we never recorded it together, I perform it now as a tribute to Ike.” The song is uniquely affecting, another indication that Freddie increasingly is finding his “own thing” in both composition and playing.

After we had talked about the date, I told Freddie again how welcome I found his approach to the organ by contrast with the muddiness and power hunger of many of his contemporaries. “Well,” Freddie observed, ‘the organ is a very easy instrument to he carried away on. If you get caught up mainly in getting the beat going, you tend to forget about the sound. I try to keep both elements in mind — the sound and the feeling. And there’s always more to learn about subtlety. I’ve been fooling around with other instruments, for example. and I’ve learned quite a lot about comping by having people comp for me.”

"The important thing is,” Freddie concluded, “to try to fill holes where you figure the soloists need support. But when the soloist is playing something sell-explanatory, leave the hole open. Similarly, you have to hold the power of the organ in reserve and pull out the stops only when you need a big sound. You have to learn to use harmonies and dynamics with taste so that you leave room for the other players. And when it’s your turn to solo, the only way you’re going to make yourself distinct from other organists is by showing how you can control power to express everything you want to say, no matter how fragile.”

As Good Move makes clear, Freddie is his own best pupil, and I can think of no more beneficial influence on today’s organists than the thoughtful, self-controlled but high-spirited Freddie Roach. 

—NAT HENTOFF

BLP 4128

Freddie Roach - Mo' Greens Please

Released - June 1963

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 21, 1963
Freddie Roach, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

tk.1 Blues In The Front Room
tk.8 I Know
tk.11 Is You Or Is You Ain't My Baby
tk.21 Party Time
tk.23 Baby Don't You Cry

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, March 11, 1963
Conrad Lester, tenor sax; Freddie Roach, organ; Eddie Wright, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

tk.7 Googa Mooga
tk.10 Two Different Worlds
tk.17 Mo' Greens Please
tk.27 Nada Bossa
tk.30 Unchained Melody

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Googa Mooga	Freddie Roach	11 March 1963
Baby Don't You Cry	Freddie Roach	21 January 1963
Party Time	Freddie Roach	21 January 1963
Nada Bossa	Freddie Roach	11 March 1963
Mo' Greens Please	Freddie Roach	11 March 1963
Side Two
Blues in the Front Room	Freddie Roach	21 January 1963
I Know	Freddie Roach	21 January 1963
Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby	Louis Jordan, Billy Austin	21 January 1963
Unchained Melody	Alex North, Hy Zaret	11 March 1963
Two Different Worlds	Freddie Roach	21 January 1963

Liner Notes

MY FIRST awareness of the organ took place in a church where the sounds sometimes resembling a crying woman, trumpets, whispering-flutes, thunder, jingling-bells, calliope, or 76 trombones found its way into my mind and heart. I would close my eyes, listening, as the organ interpreted each word from the pulpit, framed them with sound and provided a sonorous carpet to my ears.

Others around were also affected by the music. In front of me a woman rocked to and fro, humming softly. To my right another clapped her hands silently. At my side a man unashamedly cried, the tears falling soundlessly on hands tightly clasped in his lap.

The wonder of the organ as it raised the choir, blending so well until it too, became a choir, coaxing, pleading, begging, commanding. Everybody sing! Everybody join in! The pulpit called. People were rising, singing. I stood; and suddenly I was singing. The music coming from that organ seemed to come through me. I opened my mouth and the organ tore the harmonics from my throat.

Then, it was quiet...we stood, heads bowed.

Deah Lawd keep us
What we'ah absen
From one n'nutter

And I could feel the organ vibrating in my chest as he played the closing march.

Onward Christian Soldiers
Marchin' on to war...

Everyone was walking around, shaking hands, smiling, and feeling good inside. They filed through the large oak doors. Music, voices mingled on the streets. Laughter! Tibial Church was out. And that moment has always remained vivid in my mind. That music was as much a part of me then at 13, as jazz is now.

Strange, how alike they both are... how each is dependent on spontaneous improvisation (like a congregation singing, using their own harmony), the beat, the feeling, remain the same. But, then, not really strange, if we consider Spirituals, the son born of slave-songs and Rock & Roll, a product of Spirituals; then Jazz would be the black-sheep of the music family. But a member anyway. And, blood is thicker than water.

Many people are affected by the organ. They are drawn to it as a moth to light. Perhaps it is because of church influence that today the organ is so popular. Certainly people (soul people) heard the organ for the first time in church. Some don't mind telling you, with a real 'naughty-boy' attitude that this is where it belongs.

At one time this probably true for physical reasons. The old pipe-organ was quite an affair. Hundreds of pipes, wires, gadgets weighing tons, made it quite clear that once up, this organ would be going nowhere. In Europe, organs were set up and buildings built around them. And today, in some of our older, larger theaters, we can still make out the covered, but familiar outline of the organ console. While atone time it supplied all the sound for epics such as "The Great Train Robbery", it is now bathes in the light of "To Kill A Mocking Bird", looking for all the world like a funeral bier.

Today's organs are small compact units, ready to be assembled and moved in minutes. And, today's people have changed. They have accepted the organ as another instrument. Many have in them in their homes. They delight in tasting and listening to those 'Happy Hammond Harmonics'.

In Mo' Greens Please we tried to provide some culinary art in the tradition of Grits & Gravy, Hot Biscuits or that other treasure, Hog Maws. The chefs Kenny Burrell, Eddie Wright, Conrad Lester, Clarence Johnston keep the pots going at all times, (Eddie Wright and Connie Lester are new to the Blue Note kitchen, but are members of my working unit.).

This is our second album for Blue Note. The first, Down To Earth (BLP4113) was more for listening, and I want to thank everyone for the nice reception it it got. On this album we decided to do some of the tunes we do for dancing in the clubs, sprinkling tempos and moods from Twist to Bossa Nova, Cha Cha to Huliy Gully, The Bird to the Old Slow Drag. It was a whole-lot-of-fun and we hope you enjoy this album as much as we enjoyed making it.

By the way, in looking over the titles and their continuity, this little story came to me:

Great Googo Mooga 
Baby, Don't You Cry — Don't you know it's
Party Time 
Nada Bossa - Nava - try some. 
Mo' Greens Please - like 
Blues In The Front Room — OK 
I Know - now 
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby - You Ain't Well 
Unchained Melody — Then of course  we're in 
Two Different Worlds 

Gracing the cover is a young lady who is probably responsible for at least 25 of my 150 pounds. She is Nellie Williams of the Urban Club Rest, East Orange, and Patron Saint of all New Jersey's unemployed musicians. Her credit book contains the names of many, like myself, who are grateful to her for her understanding and just plain good cooking.

- FREDDIE ROACH

Cover Photo bu RONNIE BRATHWAITE
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

BLP 4113

Freddie Roach - Down to Earth

Released - November 1962

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 23, 1962
Percy France, tenor sax; Freddie Roach, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Clarence Johnston, drums.

tk.3 Lion Down
tk.10 Ahm Miz
tk.17 Lujon
tk.18 De Bug
tk.19 Althea Soon
tk.23 More Mileage

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
De Bug	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Ahm Miz	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Lujan	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Side Two
Althea Soon	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
More Mileage	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962
Lion Down	Freddie Roach	23 August 1962

Liner Notes

THE Hammond organ has been upon us in growing quantity and volume during the past few years. Although there are in the playing of some of the emergent organists which make sense to me in a jazz context, it has been difficult to convert me into an enthusiastic admirer of the instrument as a whole. In the past, I had been delighted by the infrequent organ forays of Fats Waller and Count Basie, but those two personages had approached the jazz organ with just those qualities which most of the younger organists lack — clarity of texture and line, suppleness of swing, and incisiveness of phrasing. Finally, in Freddie Roach, there is a musician who does make the organ into a persuasive jazz instrument; and I think that this first album of his as a leader will cause some long-needed rethinking on the optimum role of the organ in Jazz.

I had first heard Freddie Roach's bracingly conception on the albums in which he participated under Ike Quebec's leadership — Heavy Soul, Blue Note 4093 and It Might As Well Be Spring, Blue Note 4105. I mentioned my surprise at hearing so refreshing an organ style to Ike, and he pointed out that he used Freddie precisely because Freddie did not have what Ike terms the "soggy sound" of most jazz organists. After hearing Freddie in this set, I asked Freddie how he conceived the role of the organ and what explained the difference in his way of playing it.

"To begin with," Freddie said, "I have been playing for some years with a lot of hornmen I admire a great deal. Therefore, I couldn't allow myself to overpower them. I had to learn to play down so that I could listen to and learn from them. Furthermore, the more I played organ, the more I realized how complex it is and how many different ways you can make it sound. I found it is not necessary to have it come out muddy. In fact, I can't stand the sound of a hard organ. That sound comes from overloading. It comes from a man playing the manual in registers that are too low. It may also come from his setting his stops too bright and it often results from voicing chords so that the harmonics become too jumbled and therefore fuzzy. You have to be very selective in voicing chords when you play organ and accordingly, you have to know your harmony."

Freddie Roach fulfills his own requirements for effective jazz organ playing with consistent skill and zest, as you can hear in this session. Interestingly, the organ — a pump organ — was the first instrument he ever played so that he has been thinking about the problems of the organ ever since he began to function musically. Freddie was born in the Bronx on May 11, 1931. The maternal side of his family wag exceptionally musical. His mother was a church organist. An uncle, Robert Birchet, was a pianist and led a big band in the East a number of years ago. And his grandmother had been a concert pianist as well as a choir director at the Salem Baptist Church in Jersey City.

Freddie grew up in the Bronx, in White Plains, and in New Jersey. While living with an aunt in White plains, Freddie, then about eight, felt driven to express himself musically, but the only instrument in the house was a pipe organ, and that's Where he began. In the succeeding years. he was largely self-taught on both piano and organ except term at the Newark Conservatory. When he was around eighteen, Freddie's professional career started seriously when he joined a group called The Strollers which was led by Grachan Moncur, once a member of the saltily swinging Savoy Sultans. From 1951 to 1953, Freddie was in the Marine Corps where he played in the band. After being released, his apprenticeship in jazz became intensified. first in Canada, and then on the road with Cootie Williams, Chris Columbus, and later Lou Donaldson. On some of these jobs he played piano and organ. On the piano, he had long admired Art Tatum and Bud Powell, and then Hank Jones and John Lewis. Increasingly, however, he had been drawn to specialize on the organ, and during the past few years, he has focused on that instrument with the exception of a few gigs on piano. His favorites on the organ include Jackie Davis ("for command of the instrument"), Jimmy Smith ("for swing"), and Shirley Scott ("for taste").

Freddie currently lives in Newark which serves as a base for his occasional expeditions with his own combo or as a single. And he is a regular at the challenging Tuesday night sessions at the Club 83 where he has worked with Jackie McLean, Kenny Dorham, Yusef Lateef, and "Cannonball" Adderley. Freddie's association with Ike Quebec for Blue Note led to this album, and Freddie was careful to choose sidemen he not only admired musically but was close to personally. "That way," Freddie explains, "there was no tension or bickering on the date. It was a marvelous feeling once we got into the studio. There was none of that competition to find out who was the hippest cat in the room. Everybody helped everybody else, and so, everybody had a ball. It was so happy a date that the title of the album, Down to Earth, expresses what happened perfectly. We all took our shoes off, so to speak, and just played with complete relaxation."

The title of De Bug comes in part from Freddie's wry feeling about his last name and also from a series of chords at the end which reminded him somehow of a cockroach. It's a blues in 3/4 time, and an interesting fact about the melody is that it starts on the fifth and then goes up in a cycle of fourths. Like ail of Freddie's compositions, the piece indicates an unforced skill at creating infectious melodic lines and a firm sense of uncluttered development. Here, as throughout the album, Kenny Burrell plays with particular warmth rhythmic fluidity, and crisp imagination. As Freddie says about Kenny, "he's one of the few guitarists who has a funky bag and also has a clear technique. And he's not only a superior soloist. The way he voices changes and otherwise comps behind you helps a great deal."

The big, bursting sound of tenor saxophonist Percy France has been heard with Bill Doggett, Sir Charles Thompson, and Jimmy Smith (on Jimmy's Home Cookin' for example, on Blue Note 4050). As for Freddie's own playing, it's stimulatingly evident from the start of his solo in De Bug that he's very much his own man. There is the tart, penetrating sound he gets as well as the resiliency of his beat. Most organists sound blurrily, poundingly alike, but Freddie has a sound and style that are instantly identifiable as no one else's.

Ahm Miz is a play on the spoken word, so far as its title is concerned. Another way of putting its point would be "I'm is." Freddie had been trying to teach his 12-year-old to speak more distinctly, but he kept coming up against this kind of mumbled answer. Freddie would say, "Haven't you finished doing that?" The boy would reply. "I'm is. Hence the tune, It's a blues with somewhat different chord changes, and its performances emphasize again the easy rapport between these four musicians. Worth noting is the firm, attentive drumming of Clarence Johnston, who has been a regular member of Harry "Sweets" Edison's combo for some time. "Clarence also lives in Newark," says Freddie. "and from time to time, we've had some wonderful sessions. I like his definiteness - the definiteness of his beat and of his drive."

Lujon, a Henry Mancini tune, is the only track on this album which Freddie didn't write. "I was attracted to it," Freddie says, "because it has such n beautiful, simple melody. I was also intrigued the whole song is based on ninths — major and minor ninths. And the way the melody and the chords are shaped, once you get to the bridge, there's nothing you can do but swing. That's Kenny at the beginning, by the way, adding to the percussive effect we wanted. He does it by kind of punching the strings. It's difficult to execute but it was just the sound I wanted." In the body of the number, Kenny reappears with a glowingly lyrical solo, which is complemented by Percy France's equally reflective but more bristling contribution.

Althea Soon received its title because of Freddie's affection for playing on words. ("I originally thought of calling it Althea Later," he explains the rather lisp-like joke.) It's a sunnily unpretentious theme and once again, Percy France plays with virile ease; Kenny Burrell solos With his characteristic combination of strength and grace; and Freddie plunges into the proceedings with that singular pungency, sinewy inventiveness, and calliope-like high spirits that make his work so appealing.

More Mileage is thus called because of Freddie's admiration for Miles Davis. "l like the simplicity of Miles' way of doing things," Freddie emphasizes, "and I guess you could call this a simple melody in Miles' idiom." The final Lion Down is dedicated by Freddie to Alfred Lion, head of Blue Note. '"Al has been like a father to me," says Freddie, "and I wanted to say how I felt about him in music. One of the things I dig about him is the completeness with which he's involved in the music he records. Here is a president of a record company who makes all the rehearsals and who makes sure he gets to know everybody personally." The tune is a buoyant blues, and distills the "down to earth" atmosphere of the album as a whole.

I expect a great deal more is going to be heard from Freddie Roach. Aside from the spirit and imagination With which he plays, the man has a thoughtful, searching approach to the organ. "The instrument," Freddie points out, "has so many possibilities that I don't think any one ever gets to really use it completely. But it is possible to learn to use it so that it really fits into a jazz group and isn't simply an instrument that sticks out. To do that you have to really hear what the other men are playing, and that way, you can blend With the group. Some organists never even change their stops, but the musical situation is always changing. There are different ways of comping for a trumpet or a saxophone or a guitar. And there are many different ways of voicing your solos. You just have to be aware of what's going on."

That Freddie is continually alert to the evolving musical situation is quite clear throughout this album. Also clear is that he has developed a penetratingly personal style by learning what not to play. He is an unusually judicious organist, and therefore, his playing does have a freshness of texture and a viability of phrasing that makes many other organists sound by contrast as if they were single-mindedly trying to blow down the walls. Freddie, however, listens — to himself and to the men he's playing with — and as always, the most rewarding jazzmen are those Who listen best.

—NAT HENTOFF 

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