BLP 5063

Gil Melle - Five Impressions Of Color

Released - 1955

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, February 27, 1955
Don Butterfield, tuba; Gil Melle, baritone sax; Lou Mecca, guitar; Billy Phillips, bass; Vinnie Thomas, drums.

tk.1 Five Impressions Of Color: I. Spectrum Violet / II. Sea Green / III. Royal Blue / IV. Ebony / V. Spectrum Red
tk.5 Life Begins At Midnight
tk.7 Threadneedle Street
tk.9 Night Train To Wildwood

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Five Impressions of Color:	Gil Melle	February 27 1955
I. Spectrum Violet
II. Sea Green
III. Royal Blue
IV. Ebony
V. Spectrum Red
Side Two
Life Begins At Midnight	Gil Melle	February 27 1955
Night Train To Wildwood	Gil Melle	February 27 1955
Threadneedle Street	Gil Melle	February 27 1955

Liner Notes

Gil Melle, baritone sax; Don Butterfield, tuba; Lou Mecca, guitar; Billy Phillips, bass; Vinnie Thomas, drums.

THIS IS Gil Mellé's fourth LP. In the course of his remarkable series of enterprises for Blue Note he has previously presented a quintet and a sextet, both on BLP 5020; a second quintet with an altered personnel on 5033; and a carefully organized and rehearsed quartet with which, on 5054, he introduced a delightful sample of what (if we were given to slogans) we might describe as New Jersey Jazz.

It seems to us that Gil has progressed steadily in the course of these various excursions, and that with this new release he has found the most vivid and capacious format of all. Actually the group featured here is simply the quartet of 5054 with one man added; but that single addition is of such stature as to change the entire tonal impact of the unit.

The addition in question is the tuba player, Don Butterfield. Since Gil and his other sidemen were introduced in previous notes, we shall dwell at length on Mr. Butterfield in order to launch properly what may turn out to be an important jazz career.

Born April 1, 1923 in Centralia, Wash., Don had some informal teaching at high school, where he played the school band's string bass and tuba, mainly because his family could not afford to get him a trumpet. The charm of the string bass eluded him, but it might be said that he fell in love with the tuba at first sight, and by the time he entered the Army in late 1942 he had determined ultimately to turn the romance into a permanent affair.

Discharged early in 1946, he came to New York, obtaining his first formal training at Juilliard. Though highly apprehensive about his own ability, he soon made his professional debut with the Goldman band, and before long was jobbing at CBS and NBC and playing with various symphony orchestras. He completed his studies in 1951, and since then has been heard on records with Jackie Gleason, briefly with Claude Thornhill, and lately as a member of the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall.

As you might suspect, Don has had to live a double life in order to make a living while maintaining an interest in jazz. Having studied, as a child, records by the swing bands of Miller, Shaw, Dorsey and Herman, he often regretted that the instrument he had chosen seemed to be one not adaptable to the jazz medium. Then one day he found a record called Where's Pres? by Ray Linn's orchestra on a small, long-since defunct west coast label. It opened up a whole new jazz world to him, and after wearing it down to the last shred of the final groove, he found he knew something a40uf the chord structures of the new jazz.

Don has five different tubas. The one he used on this session is a contrabass or Double B Flat tuba with a range just two octaves below that of the trumpet.

Gil's confidence in the idea that a big ensemble was not essential for the inclusion of a tuba made it possible for Don to bring to light the full versatility of the instrument, and of his extraordinary talent in manipulating it, in this series of original Melle compositions.

The first side, a suite of five color impressions by Gil, was inspired by the fact that, as Gil says, "A number of things that I had written seemed to suggest certain colors to me, so I built them up and elaborated on several themes, using the guitar to play parts along with the baritone, and employing the tuba for both melodic and rhythmic purposes.

Spectrum Violet starts with ad lib guitar on a minor chord sequence before Gil comes in to play a unison passage with Mecca. Toward the end the tuba enters for some ultra-violet effects. There is great depth, too, in the writing of Sea Green, which makes use of parallel minor ninths.

Royal Blue, opening with some intriguing interplay between Melle, Mecca and Butterfield, with a guitar lead on some parallel fourths, proceeds to an improvised tuba passage that brings out to astonishing effect Don's ability to make a jazz vehicle out of this cumbersome horn. His articulation and sound are as perfect as the recording, in a unique and fascinating performance.

Ebony derives its compelling theme from a ten-bar chord pattern (reduced to eight for some of the solo passages) composed mainly of minor sixths and maior sevenths. A bass solo precedes the introduction of the theme. After solos by Gil and Lou and a short bass passage, the tuba contributes to a dark, almost brutal mood in the dramatic coda.

Spectrum Red is mainly a percussion solo. "The idea," Gil relates, "was to show Vinnie in breaks and figures of varying lengths." The result shows this versatile artist in a series of moods, as a photographer might present his subject from every angle.

The quintet strolls through more conventional harmonic gardens in the charming Life Begins at Midnight (titled for disc jockey Jack Walker of WOV, whose slogan this is). Gil's solo moves with the consummate ease that has been a striking feature of his big-toned, expertly controlled baritone work. Butterfield has a wild solo on this one, including an amazing gliss that seems to dip from a D down a tenth to a low B Flat. Guitar and bass also have solos that fit well into the overall mood.

Night Train To Wildwood (named for the New Jersey town where Gil was gigging) uses two themes, the second of which revolves with ingenious rhythmic manipulations around the tonic. Mecca's solo, like all his work in this set, shows that here is a guitarist gifted both with inspiration and the technical equipment to carry his ideas into action. Lou comps superbly, too, while Billy Phillips walks through a swinging bass solo; Vinnie's brushes and Don's horn contribute individual moments.

The set ends with Threadneedle Street, in which the basic melodic theme is the simplest and perhaps the catchiest of the whole LP. The rich texture of the guitar chord work backing up the baritone again shows the advantages of the group's instrumentation. Notice the melodic use of the flatted fifth in the fourth bar of the main line. And the creamy purity of those four Butterfield notes that seal this one off.

A few hearings of this set will convince you of three facts: that each Melle combo is more effective than its predecessor, that Mr. Butterfield is a force to be reckoned with in the jazz days to come, and that Gil has by now established himself in the forefront of the younger composers who have managed to blaze new and stimulating trails while never betraying a firm allegiance to the jazz idiom.

LEONARD FEATHER
Cover Design by GIL MELLE
Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF Technical Data: The greatest core has been given to every step in the manufacture of this record. The finest available recording equipment from the U. S. and Europe has been utilized. Ampex Series 300 tape recorders, Telefunken microphones, British Grampian cutter and Scully lathe. This album is recorded with a standard R.I.A.A. recording characteristic. The most modern factory methods and the purest yinylite material insure incomparable pressings.

Recording Engineer; Rudy Van Gelder.

Complete Fifties Sessions CD Notes

A PAPER TIME CAPSULE WHEN MICHAEL COSCUNA advised me that a compendium of these early recordings was due for reissue, I must confess that a crescendo of uneasiness filled my soul as I sat down and prepared to listen, after so many years, to each track. I am a musician who has never been content with any of yesterday's efforts, and these half-century old preludes to a lifetime spent in the creation of cutting edge music could only serve to illustrate how much I needed to know and was able to accomplish in those early years.

I sit and listen. The recollections begin.

I wrote my first ever composition, "The Gears," during the time that I worked as a messenger on the Lehigh Valley Railroad (hence the title) at the age of 14 while also struggling with a tenor sax, the boxcars at Washington Street serving as my sole practice "studios." It was virtually unheard of in those days to use the voice as an instrument (excepting "scat") as I did in this piece. Notable. "Mars," "Four Moons" and "Venus" were composed soon afterwards and interspersed with many drawings and paintings, one of which won first prize in a Red Cross competition. Working in my favor was an insatiable passion for jazz spawned by a reasonably complete collection of Ellington which I had amassed from used record shops with my school lunch money. I was eight when I started collecting them. Duke's inventiveness on the Brunswick label. .. "Tishomingo Blues," "Black and Tan Fantasy" and especially "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" became heady stuff for me. I also saw the band at the Paramount and Adams theatres and can still name all of the players. At 13, Monk's music became the main occupant of my skull. The notion that I could ever be a jazzman, however, was, in Oscar Wilde's, words "a dream that far exceeds reality," a calling as privileged as priesthood and so I entertained no delusions of grandeur except, perhaps, to think of how Thelonious might approach playing the saxophone as a basis for my style.

I soon discovered that the things I needed to know could not be learned through instruction...only experience! To this day, I have never had a single lesson but my associations, through the years, with the world's most gifted musicians and artists who have illuminated my thoughts and given substance to my efforts. The list would be endless. For me, intense personal observation surpassed academia. I played gigs with Freddie Roach and the supremely gifted Joe Manning (vibes/piano and a close friend and protégé of Bud Powell and Milt Jackson.) Freddie, years later, became a Blue Note recording artist and Joe, heard here, died at 22. A great loss. At 16, during the Korean emergency, I lied about my age and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Discharged at 18, I spent many nights playing jazz in countless gin joints. Two years later, I met Alfred Lion and was given the opportunity of my life. He signed me to a one year contract (the first of five) to record for the greatest jazz label that ever was...Blue Note. Just look at the names on my records... Max Roach who was a legend to me even as a small boy. Oscar Pettiford who played on so many of cherished Ellington records. 1 sure was scared, which is saying a lot after having been in the corps. The faces of Red Mitchell, George Wallington and Eddie, Bert (a lifetime close friend) flash through mind as I continue listening to these old sides. Like Alfred, the man who most influenced my life, I too gave opportunities to young musicians that I knew and held in high regard. The debuts of Urbie Green, Joe Morello, Tal Farlow, Ed Thigpen, Lou Mecca, Bill Phillips, Joe Cinderella and others took place within these records. The tuba (Don Butterfield) and French horn (Julius Watkins) saw the first light of day as solo improvisatory instruments with me but, historically, the most important innovation in these works is that it is the first time ever (1951) that a guitar was used to replace the piano in small group instrumentation (the very basis of rock music). I thought that it was a sound idea since both instruments were fully capable of comping but the guitar's potential as a front line instrument (as with horns) was unlimited. Tal and others understood and much of the results are here. He has recently died (1998) and I feel as though I have lost a brother as I hear his flawless, timeless guitar and picture, in my mind, those enormous hands working their magic. The compositions on my first album were meant to be performed as "The Interplanetary Suite" and half of my fourth album features another suite, "Five Impressions Of Color." These compositional forms for a group were totally unique at the time.

My heated discussions with Max concerning the "unheard-of-at-the-time" false ending on the binary composition "Mars," blood dripping from my fingers (an accident) and down my horn while playing chorus after chorus and on the Patterns in Jazz date and arguments with Oscar concerning the use of a flatted ninth in the bass against a major chord at the very end of "Long Ago And Far Away" stand out in my recollection of myriads of anecdotes and incidents connected with these records. The picture of Pettiford and I that graces that album was taken at the height of our. ..shall I say... disagreement.

From the aforementioned, you might say that 11m a sort of "Jazz Chemist," an incurable experimentalist. I've spent my life living in and for the future. What did it all lead to? Virtually every innovation in electronic music was made by me...an awesome statement yet true. I challenge anyone to disprove it. Beginning in late 1958, I have systematically altered the course of music at its very foundations with a soldering iron and my passions. The following "firsts" are mine...live performance of electronic music ('68 Monterey Jazz electronic film score (Michael Crichton's The Festival and earlier) Andromeda Strain), electronic television score (Rod Serling's Night Gallery and earlier) plus the earliest electronic jazz recordings (TOME VI on Verve). I led the first "synth" group (the Electronauts) for years and created many instruments including the worlds first electronic wind instrument and the drum machine (see photos and back cover). All of this because Alfred, the futurist, believed in me from the very beginning. It began with these sides and today, to the chagrin or joy of millions, synthesis is a part of nearly all music.

I stop the turntable and think a bit more about "The Gears."

I had the privelege of being Alfred's closest friend during that decade and his retirement to a distant land for many years did not diminish our comraderie. One memorable night he called me and asked, as a personal favor to him, to record a modern version of "The Gears. I was truly amazed and flattered, but declined. After my experiences in music it would seem to be a mega step backwards. He was, however, very enthusiastic about my Mindscape album (Blue Note 92168) prior to its release so his concept of an updated version of my first composition was not idle speculation. "Let me think about it" I said. Two days later CNN announced his passing and the new "Gears" was no longer conjecture. The great man's last request was fulfilled and he was, as always, right..." The Gears" is important.

I created many record jackets for Blue Note and clearly I remember the cover on this album set. It was based on a fine photograph taken by Bill Huges during a Christmas concert with my group at Town Hall in New York City (1954). This same unit performed at the worlds first jazz festival at Newport and was billed as the most promising new group of the year. Shortly thereafter, our little band was honored to be one of the very first to be featured at Carnegie Hall in a concert for the people of Israel.

The album Gil Mellé Quintet/Sextet 5020 marked the beginning of Dr. Rudy Van Gelder's career as a recording engineer with Blue Note. I brought Alfred and Rudy together, the beginning of a most celebrated association.

A little faith goes a long way!
—GIL MELLE
1998

BLP 5054

Gil Melle - Volume 3

Released - August 1954

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, September 5, 1954
Gil Melle, baritone sax; Lou Mecca, guitar; Billy Phillips, bass; Vinnie Thomas, drums.

tk.4 Lullaby Of Birdland
tk.8 Ballade For Guitar
tk.10 Metropolitan
tk.18 Newport News
tk.19 Quadrille For Moderns
tk.20 Summertime

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Quadrille For Moderns	Gil Melle	September 5 1954
Ballade For Guitar	Gil Melle	September 5 1954
Lullaby Of Birdland	Shearing	September 5 1954
Side Two
Newport News	Gil Melle	September 5 1954
Metropolitan	Gil Melle	September 5 1954
Summertime	Gershwin	September 5 1954

Liner Notes

THE PROBLEM of breaking through the barrier between obscurity and recognition on the jazz scene is one that has, inevitably, confronted every musician of talent at one point in his career. For Gil Mellé, still in his early twenties, some of the bastions fell not too long after his first Blue Note releases on 5020, with the Quintet and Sextet and 5033, with a new quintet.

Since then, Gil has grown perceptibly in stature (though not physically — after reaching 6 ft. 4 in. he decided enough was enough). His musical ideas have matured, his direction has been more firmly established.

The format on which he settled for his newest adventure is a more compact, more permanent one than its predecessors. It is not merely a group assembled for a record session, but an organized unit of men with whom Gil has been rehearsing and preparing special material for several months.

In his own words, "It took two years of collecting names and phone numbers of talented musicians who are deeply interested in modern jazz. The musicians on this date are the result of this search." From playing tenor on his first LP and both baritone and tenor on his second, Gil evolved to full-time devotion to the baritone saxophone. "I feel more akin to the instrument, and it compliments this unit far better than a tenor," he says.

Concerning the unorthodox instrumentation he adds, "Years ago, I decided upon the guitar as a substitute for the piano, because it lends a light, undominating quality to a group. Besides being capable of playing piano-like changes it can also execute ensemble phrases that ordinarily would be given to a horn but certainly never a piano.

In other words the guitar plays a dual role, fully establishing a harmonic foundation, and playing solo and ensemble parts in the capacity of a horn. For these reasons, I (have used the guitar extensively for the past two years for recordings and public performances."

Assembled several months ago, the quartet had been experimenting continuously with ideas for the best use of its instrumentation before Gil wrote and recorded the selections heard here.

Lou Mecca, whose role is second in importance only to Gil's, is a Passaic resident. He has been through various .phases as an admirer of Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt and especially of Tal FarJow. Although essentially a jazzman, Lou has extensive classical background and particularly enjoys playing the works of Bach. In the course of earning a livelihood, he has worked with the Three Suns and Archie Bleyer. He is a long time friend of Johnny Smith.

Bassist Billy Phillips, too, has worked with commercial bands around New Jersey and New York; Vinnie Thomas, the drummer, got out of the service some six months ago and has thus spent most of his recent civilian life with Gil's group. His work in this set is a model of discretion and quiet swing.

The first thing that struck me, on listening to Quadrille For Moderns, the opening tune of the set, was the intriguing result of having the guitar play the role of a sort of musical aide-de-camp for the baritone sax. Though naturally pitched higher than the horn, it has the effect of a lower line in the ingenious underscoring and counterbalancing of Gil's phrases. A sense of careful preparation is also immediately evident, as is the authority and consistency of Gil's sound on baritone.

Ballade for Guitar was written by Gil specially for Lou Mecca. The latter takes the first 16 bars accompanied only by bass, expounding the theme gently in spread chords. You will hear in Lou's work a reminder of the halcyon Spanish guitar days when the sound was that of a full-bodied, six-stringed instrument with a metallic, biting edge. Although he uses an amplified instrument, the sound is closer to that of the traditional guitar and the style a distinct departure from the conventional single lines of most contemporary plectrists.

Lullaby of Birdland, the George Shearing opus that has grown in two years to the proportions of a full-fledged jazz standard, gets a few new twists, including some Latin-rhythm touches. Note the support given by Gil, in half notes, to Lou during his solo, and the reciprocal aid offered by the latter to Gil in his own passage.

Newport News is not related to Ella Fitzgerald's home town in Virginia, but to Newport, R. I.; where Gil presented this same quartet at the first national jazz festival in the summer of 1954. The piece was composed especially for this event by him and performed for the first time there. The use of ten-bar phrases and other constructional deviations lend this number a special piquancy. Phillips' solo and the drum breaks share the credits with the horn and guitar here.

Metropolitan, one of Gil's most charming melodies, starts with a downward phrase built on two Charleston beats. Lou's chorus this time flows gracefully, mostly in single-note lines in eighths. Another fine baritone chorus, a return to the theme and a last bridge in chords by Lou are the ensuing features.

The album concludes with a sensitive sample of what can be done to refresh a much-overworked standard without losing any of its inherent qualities. The long solo by Gil that occupies the first segment of Summertime is respectful of the melody and mood of the Gershwin piece, while Lou's figurations in the background offers engaging harmonic variations. The guitar solo that follows is perhaps Lou's most outstanding contribution to the album.

For the jazz listener seeking new instrumental combinations and ideas, this set represents another provocative offering by Gil Mellé, in a new and intriguing mold. For the 22-year-old saxophonist himself, it is a special accomplishment, for, in Gil's own words, "I think with this group I've found the format that's right for me."

We believe you'll agree.

Cover Photo by BILL HUGHES

—LEONARD FEATHER ( Down Beat Magazine)

Technical Data: The Wide Range recording characteristic includes frequencies from 20 to 18.000 cycles. Multiple microphone technique was employed, utilizing Telefunken microphones and Ampex Series 300 tape recorders. Mastering equipment included Fairchild variable pitch lathe, Grampian cutter and Thermo-Styius.

Recording Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder.

Complete Fifties Sessions CD Notes

A PAPER TIME CAPSULE WHEN MICHAEL COSCUNA advised me that a compendium of these early recordings was due for reissue, I must confess that a crescendo of uneasiness filled my soul as I sat down and prepared to listen, after so many years, to each track. I am a musician who has never been content with any of yesterday's efforts, and these half-century old preludes to a lifetime spent in the creation of cutting edge music could only serve to illustrate how much I needed to know and was able to accomplish in those early years.

I sit and listen. The recollections begin.

I wrote my first ever composition, "The Gears," during the time that I worked as a messenger on the Lehigh Valley Railroad (hence the title) at the age of 14 while also struggling with a tenor sax, the boxcars at Washington Street serving as my sole practice "studios." It was virtually unheard of in those days to use the voice as an instrument (excepting "scat") as I did in this piece. Notable. "Mars," "Four Moons" and "Venus" were composed soon afterwards and interspersed with many drawings and paintings, one of which won first prize in a Red Cross competition. Working in my favor was an insatiable passion for jazz spawned by a reasonably complete collection of Ellington which I had amassed from used record shops with my school lunch money. I was eight when I started collecting them. Duke's inventiveness on the Brunswick label. .. "Tishomingo Blues," "Black and Tan Fantasy" and especially "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" became heady stuff for me. I also saw the band at the Paramount and Adams theatres and can still name all of the players. At 13, Monk's music became the main occupant of my skull. The notion that I could ever be a jazzman, however, was, in Oscar Wilde's, words "a dream that far exceeds reality," a calling as privileged as priesthood and so I entertained no delusions of grandeur except, perhaps, to think of how Thelonious might approach playing the saxophone as a basis for my style.

I soon discovered that the things I needed to know could not be learned through instruction...only experience! To this day, I have never had a single lesson but my associations, through the years, with the world's most gifted musicians and artists who have illuminated my thoughts and given substance to my efforts. The list would be endless. For me, intense personal observation surpassed academia. I played gigs with Freddie Roach and the supremely gifted Joe Manning (vibes/piano and a close friend and protégé of Bud Powell and Milt Jackson.) Freddie, years later, became a Blue Note recording artist and Joe, heard here, died at 22. A great loss. At 16, during the Korean emergency, I lied about my age and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Discharged at 18, I spent many nights playing jazz in countless gin joints. Two years later, I met Alfred Lion and was given the opportunity of my life. He signed me to a one year contract (the first of five) to record for the greatest jazz label that ever was...Blue Note. Just look at the names on my records... Max Roach who was a legend to me even as a small boy. Oscar Pettiford who played on so many of cherished Ellington records. 1 sure was scared, which is saying a lot after having been in the corps. The faces of Red Mitchell, George Wallington and Eddie, Bert (a lifetime close friend) flash through mind as I continue listening to these old sides. Like Alfred, the man who most influenced my life, I too gave opportunities to young musicians that I knew and held in high regard. The debuts of Urbie Green, Joe Morello, Tal Farlow, Ed Thigpen, Lou Mecca, Bill Phillips, Joe Cinderella and others took place within these records. The tuba (Don Butterfield) and French horn (Julius Watkins) saw the first light of day as solo improvisatory instruments with me but, historically, the most important innovation in these works is that it is the first time ever (1951) that a guitar was used to replace the piano in small group instrumentation (the very basis of rock music). I thought that it was a sound idea since both instruments were fully capable of comping but the guitar's potential as a front line instrument (as with horns) was unlimited. Tal and others understood and much of the results are here. He has recently died (1998) and I feel as though I have lost a brother as I hear his flawless, timeless guitar and picture, in my mind, those enormous hands working their magic. The compositions on my first album were meant to be performed as "The Interplanetary Suite" and half of my fourth album features another suite, "Five Impressions Of Color." These compositional forms for a group were totally unique at the time.

My heated discussions with Max concerning the "unheard-of-at-the-time" false ending on the binary composition "Mars," blood dripping from my fingers (an accident) and down my horn while playing chorus after chorus and on the Patterns in Jazz date and arguments with Oscar concerning the use of a flatted ninth in the bass against a major chord at the very end of "Long Ago And Far Away" stand out in my recollection of myriads of anecdotes and incidents connected with these records. The picture of Pettiford and I that graces that album was taken at the height of our. ..shall I say... disagreement.

From the aforementioned, you might say that 11m a sort of "Jazz Chemist," an incurable experimentalist. I've spent my life living in and for the future. What did it all lead to? Virtually every innovation in electronic music was made by me...an awesome statement yet true. I challenge anyone to disprove it. Beginning in late 1958, I have systematically altered the course of music at its very foundations with a soldering iron and my passions. The following "firsts" are mine...live performance of electronic music ('68 Monterey Jazz electronic film score (Michael Crichton's The Festival and earlier) Andromeda Strain), electronic television score (Rod Serling's Night Gallery and earlier) plus the earliest electronic jazz recordings (TOME VI on Verve). I led the first "synth" group (the Electronauts) for years and created many instruments including the worlds first electronic wind instrument and the drum machine (see photos and back cover). All of this because Alfred, the futurist, believed in me from the very beginning. It began with these sides and today, to the chagrin or joy of millions, synthesis is a part of nearly all music.

I stop the turntable and think a bit more about "The Gears."

I had the privelege of being Alfred's closest friend during that decade and his retirement to a distant land for many years did not diminish our comraderie. One memorable night he called me and asked, as a personal favor to him, to record a modern version of "The Gears. I was truly amazed and flattered, but declined. After my experiences in music it would seem to be a mega step backwards. He was, however, very enthusiastic about my Mindscape album (Blue Note 92168) prior to its release so his concept of an updated version of my first composition was not idle speculation. "Let me think about it" I said. Two days later CNN announced his passing and the new "Gears" was no longer conjecture. The great man's last request was fulfilled and he was, as always, right..." The Gears" is important.

I created many record jackets for Blue Note and clearly I remember the cover on this album set. It was based on a fine photograph taken by Bill Huges during a Christmas concert with my group at Town Hall in New York City (1954). This same unit performed at the worlds first jazz festival at Newport and was billed as the most promising new group of the year. Shortly thereafter, our little band was honored to be one of the very first to be featured at Carnegie Hall in a concert for the people of Israel.

The album Gil Mellé Quintet/Sextet 5020 marked the beginning of Dr. Rudy Van Gelder's career as a recording engineer with Blue Note. I brought Alfred and Rudy together, the beginning of a most celebrated association.

A little faith goes a long way!
—GIL MELLE
1998

BLP 5033

Gil Melle - Volume 2

Released - 1953

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, October 25, 1953
Urbie Green, trombone; Gil Melle, tenor, baritone sax; Tal Farlow, guitar; Clyde Lombardi, bass; Joe Morello, drums.

BN526-2 tk.3 Lover Man
BN528-2 tk.11 Spellbound
BN529-1 tk.14 Transition
BN530-1 tk.16 A Lion Lives Here
BN531-2 tk.19 Timepiece
BN527-5 tk.23 Gingersnap

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Timepiece	Gil Melle	October 25 1953
Lover Man	Ramirez	October 25 1953
Gingersnap	Gil Melle	October 25 1953
Side Two
A Lion Lives Here	Gil Melle	October 25 1953
Spellbound	M. Rosza	October 25 1953
Transition	Gil Melle	October 25 1953

Liner Notes

THE REFUSAL to do the expected has made Gil Mellé, just barely in his twenties, a session leader of distinction. This second album of Gil's shows once more how artfully he can vary accepted patterns and turn them into fresh jazz statements, how effectively he can employ a more or less conventional jazz instrumentation, how charming he can make three- to five-minute jazz performances.

Once again it is taste that makes these sides turn round so compellingly, not only Gil's, but Urbie Green's and Tal Farlow's and Clyde Lombardi's and Joe Morello's as well. It is important here to stress the contribution of all five musicians, for this is a freer ensemble than the first Gil commanded on record, the solos more frequent and the soloists consequently more important. And with the soloists, always, there is a steady rhythm section, an imaginative one, composed of soloists who know when and how to take their bows and just as well when and where to recede into the background.

The mixture is pretty much as before, say in the late bop years, in the opening Timepiece, by which the musicians in effect set their beats and keep them. It's up tempo jazz, with Gil's move to baritone saxophone worth celebrating, Urbie Green's facility on the trombone and Tal Farlow's single-string dexterity as expected. Comparatively new, to my ears at any rate, is the delicate balance of baritone, trombone and guitar sonorities. It suggests that an organized little band consisting of these instruments and rhythm could make a substantial contribution to jazz. That impression is deepened by the languorous Lover Man that follows, the most extended of the performances in this collection and the most moving. It is a beautiful exercise in counter-melody, Urbie's, Gil's on tenor and Tal's, stretching Ram Ramirez's classic tune loosely over long lines and sweet sounds.

Gingersnap and A Lion Lives Here make a suitable sequence, from up to middle tempo, from one unison figure to another, from one simple jazz catch to another. Like Timepiece, the tunes are Gil's, the distinct sounds his on tenor and baritone, and Urbie's and Tal's again, with Joe Morello contributing a delightful brush period to Lion, bringing the piece named for Blue Note's presiding director to a witty conclusion.

Urbie, Gil and Tal rescue Spellbound from the lugubrious ululations of the theremin and remove it forever from its original attachment to a psychological murder mystery with a light swinging treatment that emphasizes the Rosza melody's tenderness. Tied to the solos (Gil's on tenor mindful of Stan Getz in Summer Sequence) is a sprightly little figure of classical elegance that opens and closes the performances and gives it a deserving symmetry.

Last of the lot is Transition, the title of which is justified by passages that move engagingly from Latin to jazz beats and others that carry the sound from an ensemble canonic imitation to a bass solo and back again, and from horn solos to string solos to a drum solo. In this rich mélange, Clyde and Tal, separately and together, distinguish them- selves, and Joe shows himself an unusually sensitive drummer, fully capable of sustaining musical interest in a solo and of making that solo very much a part of the rest of the proceedings. It's fitting that the drummer should draw such distinction upon himself in this piece of Gil's, for while this is a Mellé album by direction and leadership and inspiration, it is also a first-rate collective effort in which every man counts.

Cover Design by JEROME KUHL

BARRY ULANOV
(Editor, Metronome)

Complete Fifties Sessions CD Notes

A PAPER TIME CAPSULE WHEN MICHAEL COSCUNA advised me that a compendium of these early recordings was due for reissue, I must confess that a crescendo of uneasiness filled my soul as I sat down and prepared to listen, after so many years, to each track. I am a musician who has never been content with any of yesterday's efforts, and these half-century old preludes to a lifetime spent in the creation of cutting edge music could only serve to illustrate how much I needed to know and was able to accomplish in those early years.

I sit and listen. The recollections begin.

I wrote my first ever composition, "The Gears," during the time that I worked as a messenger on the Lehigh Valley Railroad (hence the title) at the age of 14 while also struggling with a tenor sax, the boxcars at Washington Street serving as my sole practice "studios." It was virtually unheard of in those days to use the voice as an instrument (excepting "scat") as I did in this piece. Notable. "Mars," "Four Moons" and "Venus" were composed soon afterwards and interspersed with many drawings and paintings, one of which won first prize in a Red Cross competition. Working in my favor was an insatiable passion for jazz spawned by a reasonably complete collection of Ellington which I had amassed from used record shops with my school lunch money. I was eight when I started collecting them. Duke's inventiveness on the Brunswick label. .. "Tishomingo Blues," "Black and Tan Fantasy" and especially "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" became heady stuff for me. I also saw the band at the Paramount and Adams theatres and can still name all of the players. At 13, Monk's music became the main occupant of my skull. The notion that I could ever be a jazzman, however, was, in Oscar Wilde's, words "a dream that far exceeds reality," a calling as privileged as priesthood and so I entertained no delusions of grandeur except, perhaps, to think of how Thelonious might approach playing the saxophone as a basis for my style.

I soon discovered that the things I needed to know could not be learned through instruction...only experience! To this day, I have never had a single lesson but my associations, through the years, with the world's most gifted musicians and artists who have illuminated my thoughts and given substance to my efforts. The list would be endless. For me, intense personal observation surpassed academia. I played gigs with Freddie Roach and the supremely gifted Joe Manning (vibes/piano and a close friend and protégé of Bud Powell and Milt Jackson.) Freddie, years later, became a Blue Note recording artist and Joe, heard here, died at 22. A great loss. At 16, during the Korean emergency, I lied about my age and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Discharged at 18, I spent many nights playing jazz in countless gin joints. Two years later, I met Alfred Lion and was given the opportunity of my life. He signed me to a one year contract (the first of five) to record for the greatest jazz label that ever was...Blue Note. Just look at the names on my records... Max Roach who was a legend to me even as a small boy. Oscar Pettiford who played on so many of cherished Ellington records. 1 sure was scared, which is saying a lot after having been in the corps. The faces of Red Mitchell, George Wallington and Eddie, Bert (a lifetime close friend) flash through mind as I continue listening to these old sides. Like Alfred, the man who most influenced my life, I too gave opportunities to young musicians that I knew and held in high regard. The debuts of Urbie Green, Joe Morello, Tal Farlow, Ed Thigpen, Lou Mecca, Bill Phillips, Joe Cinderella and others took place within these records. The tuba (Don Butterfield) and French horn (Julius Watkins) saw the first light of day as solo improvisatory instruments with me but, historically, the most important innovation in these works is that it is the first time ever (1951) that a guitar was used to replace the piano in small group instrumentation (the very basis of rock music). I thought that it was a sound idea since both instruments were fully capable of comping but the guitar's potential as a front line instrument (as with horns) was unlimited. Tal and others understood and much of the results are here. He has recently died (1998) and I feel as though I have lost a brother as I hear his flawless, timeless guitar and picture, in my mind, those enormous hands working their magic. The compositions on my first album were meant to be performed as "The Interplanetary Suite" and half of my fourth album features another suite, "Five Impressions Of Color." These compositional forms for a group were totally unique at the time.

My heated discussions with Max concerning the "unheard-of-at-the-time" false ending on the binary composition "Mars," blood dripping from my fingers (an accident) and down my horn while playing chorus after chorus and on the Patterns in Jazz date and arguments with Oscar concerning the use of a flatted ninth in the bass against a major chord at the very end of "Long Ago And Far Away" stand out in my recollection of myriads of anecdotes and incidents connected with these records. The picture of Pettiford and I that graces that album was taken at the height of our. ..shall I say... disagreement.

From the aforementioned, you might say that I'm a sort of "Jazz Chemist," an incurable experimentalist. I've spent my life living in and for the future. What did it all lead to? Virtually every innovation in electronic music was made by me...an awesome statement yet true. I challenge anyone to disprove it. Beginning in late 1958, I have systematically altered the course of music at its very foundations with a soldering iron and my passions. The following "firsts" are mine...live performance of electronic music ('68 Monterey Jazz electronic film score (Michael Crichton's The Festival and earlier) Andromeda Strain), electronic television score (Rod Serling's Night Gallery and earlier) plus the earliest electronic jazz recordings (TOME VI on Verve). I led the first "synth" group (the Electronauts) for years and created many instruments including the worlds first electronic wind instrument and the drum machine (see photos and back cover). All of this because Alfred, the futurist, believed in me from the very beginning. It began with these sides and today, to the chagrin or joy of millions, synthesis is a part of nearly all music.

I stop the turntable and think a bit more about "The Gears."

I had the privelege of being Alfred's closest friend during that decade and his retirement to a distant land for many years did not diminish our comraderie. One memorable night he called me and asked, as a personal favor to him, to record a modern version of "The Gears. I was truly amazed and flattered, but declined. After my experiences in music it would seem to be a mega step backwards. He was, however, very enthusiastic about my Mindscape album (Blue Note 92168) prior to its release so his concept of an updated version of my first composition was not idle speculation. "Let me think about it" I said. Two days later CNN announced his passing and the new "Gears" was no longer conjecture. The great man's last request was fulfilled and he was, as always, right..." The Gears" is important.

I created many record jackets for Blue Note and clearly I remember the cover on this album set. It was based on a fine photograph taken by Bill Huges during a Christmas concert with my group at Town Hall in New York City (1954). This same unit performed at the worlds first jazz festival at Newport and was billed as the most promising new group of the year. Shortly thereafter, our little band was honored to be one of the very first to be featured at Carnegie Hall in a concert for the people of Israel.

The album Gil Mellé Quintet/Sextet 5020 marked the beginning of Dr. Rudy Van Gelder's career as a recording engineer with Blue Note. I brought Alfred and Rudy together, the beginning of a most celebrated association.

A little faith goes a long way!
—GIL MELLE
1998

BLP 5020

Gil Melle - New Faces - New Sounds

Released - 1953

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 2, 1952
Eddie Bert, trombone; Gil Melle, tenor sax; Joe Manning, vibes; George Wallington, piano; Red Mitchell, bass; Max Roach, drums; Monica Dell, vocals #2-4.

BN461-3 (tk.4) Four Moons
BN462-3 (tk.8) The Gears
BN463-0 (tk.9) Mars
BN464-0 (tk.10) Sunset Concerto

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, January 31, 1953
Eddie Bert as X. Kentonite, trombone; Gil Melle, tenor sax; Tal Farlow, guitar; Clyde Lombardi, bass; Joe Morello, drums.

BN465-4 tk.5 Cyclotron
BN466-2 tk.8 October
BN467-0 tk.10 Under Capricorn
BN468-0 tk.13 Venus

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
October	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Cyclotron	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Venus	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Under Capricorn	Gil Melle	January 31 1953
Side Two
The Gears	Gil Melle	March 2 1952
Mars	Gil Melle	March 2 1952
Four Moons	Gil Melle	March 2 1952
Sunset Concerto	Gil Melle	March 2 1952

Liner Notes

AMONG present-day jazz musicians, the parallel gifts of taste and continuity are sadly lacking. With whatever high harmonic talents they may be provided, however rich their melodic fancy, no matter how handsomely equipped with rhythmic ingenuity, that pleasing pairing — taste and continuity — rarely makes its way into their work. All of this is, of course, to indicate how much these twin values appear in the music of Gil Mellé, how much and how musically.

To hear what I mean, run the opening sides over on your machine, then listen to them all over again. Not only do they achieve beginnings, middles, and ends, each in itself, but they establish a continuity from side to side as well. If you're addicted to jazz titles, you may find the musical meaning expressed in the mixture of scientific nomenclature — seasonal, atomic, astronomical. If you're more interested in the way the music is put together as music, you shouldn't miss the development of ideas from tenor and trombone reflection in October, to spirited byplay between those instruments in Cyclotron, to suggestive rhumba beats in Venus, finally to boppy unison, more or less elated, Under Capricorn. All of it hangs together, that's clear. What's more subtle is the pizzicato guitar figure Tal Farlow plucks so prettily behind the two horns at the beginning of October, the quiet authority of Joe Morello's Latin drumming in Venus, and the easy matching of trombone and tenor sounds in the last of this group.

The musical atmosphere more rigorously follows the lyrical titles in the second quartet of Mellé compositions that it does in the first four. The motivation of this group is suggested, at least, by the cover Gil has designed for his album, with its facile employment of the familiar devices of abstract painting for its design. Within the design, and very much a part of the devices, is the plan of the album — circles made to resemble galaxies of stars — and the names of the pieces that make it up. Similarly, within the design of modern mechanics and the stars and the planets, there is plenty of room for swinging solos, such as Gil's and George Wallington's in Gears and Eddie Bert's in Moons and Sunset and Tal Farlow's in Cyclotron and Capricorn. What you often have, then, is a series of backdrops for solos, or, just as frequently, background music that illustrates its atmospheric themes so well you forget all about listening for solos and pay attention strictly to an overall line, a continuity, a motion forward to a necessary end, all generally accomplished with taste.

Taste doesn't some naturally to anybody; in this respect, Gil is anybody. He's a West Coast native who went to hi school in New York City, returned to Hollywood or advanced musical studies and four years of gigging around from 1947 to 1951 (reaching as far south as Tijuana in his jobbing travels) before returning to New York to settle down to arranging, composing, and playing. From the studying and the jobs and the writing came taste, taste for a wide range of effects and resources: polytonality, as in Mars; time against time, as in the waltz against fox-trot beats in Sunset Concerto; fragmentary experiments without any key center, as in October, after the opening figure has spun out. Taste, too, one should add, for the simple and the obvious, as in the well-named, well-scored, well-written Venus, in which Gil relies upon repetition of rhumba patterns almost to monotony and then rescues all with a deft departure from the simple and the obvious in the multiple-key coda.

Gil's influences are more obvious than the devices with which he relieves the monotony—he cites Stan Kenton, Thelonious Monk and the other boppers, Debussy and the other fathers and doctors of the Impressionist school. I should add Hollywood — the tinsel, the romantic, the lush — to Gil's list and then admit my admiration for this youngster's ability to assimilate the simple, the obvious, bop. Impressionism, and Hollywood, and make it all come out fresh and structured and tasteful.

Cover Design by GIL MELLÉ

—BARRY ULANOV
(Editor, Metronome)

Complete Fifties Sessions CD Notes

A PAPER TIME CAPSULE WHEN MICHAEL COSCUNA advised me that a compendium of these early recordings was due for reissue, I must confess that a crescendo of uneasiness filled my soul as I sat down and prepared to listen, after so many years, to each track. I am a musician who has never been content with any of yesterday's efforts, and these half-century old preludes to a lifetime spent in the creation of cutting edge music could only serve to illustrate how much I needed to know and was able to accomplish in those early years.

I sit and listen. The recollections begin.

I wrote my first ever composition, "The Gears," during the time that I worked as a messenger on the Lehigh Valley Railroad (hence the title) at the age of 14 while also struggling with a tenor sax, the boxcars at Washington Street serving as my sole practice "studios." It was virtually unheard of in those days to use the voice as an instrument (excepting "scat") as I did in this piece. Notable. "Mars," "Four Moons" and "Venus" were composed soon afterwards and interspersed with many drawings and paintings, one of which won first prize in a Red Cross competition. Working in my favor was an insatiable passion for jazz spawned by a reasonably complete collection of Ellington which I had amassed from used record shops with my school lunch money. I was eight when I started collecting them. Duke's inventiveness on the Brunswick label. .. "Tishomingo Blues," "Black and Tan Fantasy" and especially "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" became heady stuff for me. I also saw the band at the Paramount and Adams theatres and can still name all of the players. At 13, Monk's music became the main occupant of my skull. The notion that I could ever be a jazzman, however, was, in Oscar Wilde's, words "a dream that far exceeds reality," a calling as privileged as priesthood and so I entertained no delusions of grandeur except, perhaps, to think of how Thelonious might approach playing the saxophone as a basis for my style.

I soon discovered that the things I needed to know could not be learned through instruction...only experience! To this day, I have never had a single lesson but my associations, through the years, with the world's most gifted musicians and artists who have illuminated my thoughts and given substance to my efforts. The list would be endless. For me, intense personal observation surpassed academia. I played gigs with Freddie Roach and the supremely gifted Joe Manning (vibes/piano and a close friend and protégé of Bud Powell and Milt Jackson.) Freddie, years later, became a Blue Note recording artist and Joe, heard here, died at 22. A great loss. At 16, during the Korean emergency, I lied about my age and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Discharged at 18, I spent many nights playing jazz in countless gin joints. Two years later, I met Alfred Lion and was given the opportunity of my life. He signed me to a one year contract (the first of five) to record for the greatest jazz label that ever was...Blue Note. Just look at the names on my records... Max Roach who was a legend to me even as a small boy. Oscar Pettiford who played on so many of cherished Ellington records. 1 sure was scared, which is saying a lot after having been in the corps. The faces of Red Mitchell, George Wallington and Eddie, Bert (a lifetime close friend) flash through mind as I continue listening to these old sides. Like Alfred, the man who most influenced my life, I too gave opportunities to young musicians that I knew and held in high regard. The debuts of Urbie Green, Joe Morello, Tal Farlow, Ed Thigpen, Lou Mecca, Bill Phillips, Joe Cinderella and others took place within these records. The tuba (Don Butterfield) and French horn (Julius Watkins) saw the first light of day as solo improvisatory instruments with me but, historically, the most important innovation in these works is that it is the first time ever (1951) that a guitar was used to replace the piano in small group instrumentation (the very basis of rock music). I thought that it was a sound idea since both instruments were fully capable of comping but the guitar's potential as a front line instrument (as with horns) was unlimited. Tal and others understood and much of the results are here. He has recently died (1998) and I feel as though I have lost a brother as I hear his flawless, timeless guitar and picture, in my mind, those enormous hands working their magic. The compositions on my first album were meant to be performed as "The Interplanetary Suite" and half of my fourth album features another suite, "Five Impressions Of Color." These compositional forms for a group were totally unique at the time.

My heated discussions with Max concerning the "unheard-of-at-the-time" false ending on the binary composition "Mars," blood dripping from my fingers (an accident) and down my horn while playing chorus after chorus and on the Patterns in Jazz date and arguments with Oscar concerning the use of a flatted ninth in the bass against a major chord at the very end of "Long Ago And Far Away" stand out in my recollection of myriads of anecdotes and incidents connected with these records. The picture of Pettiford and I that graces that album was taken at the height of our. ..shall I say... disagreement.

From the aforementioned, you might say that I'm a sort of "Jazz Chemist," an incurable experimentalist. I've spent my life living in and for the future. What did it all lead to? Virtually every innovation in electronic music was made by me...an awesome statement yet true. I challenge anyone to disprove it. Beginning in late 1958, I have systematically altered the course of music at its very foundations with a soldering iron and my passions. The following "firsts" are mine...live performance of electronic music ('68 Monterey Jazz electronic film score (Michael Crichton's The Festival and earlier) Andromeda Strain), electronic television score (Rod Serling's Night Gallery and earlier) plus the earliest electronic jazz recordings (TOME VI on Verve). I led the first "synth" group (the Electronauts) for years and created many instruments including the worlds first electronic wind instrument and the drum machine (see photos and back cover). All of this because Alfred, the futurist, believed in me from the very beginning. It began with these sides and today, to the chagrin or joy of millions, synthesis is a part of nearly all music.

I stop the turntable and think a bit more about "The Gears."

I had the privelege of being Alfred's closest friend during that decade and his retirement to a distant land for many years did not diminish our comraderie. One memorable night he called me and asked, as a personal favor to him, to record a modern version of "The Gears. I was truly amazed and flattered, but declined. After my experiences in music it would seem to be a mega step backwards. He was, however, very enthusiastic about my Mindscape album (Blue Note 92168) prior to its release so his concept of an updated version of my first composition was not idle speculation. "Let me think about it" I said. Two days later CNN announced his passing and the new "Gears" was no longer conjecture. The great man's last request was fulfilled and he was, as always, right..." The Gears" is important.

I created many record jackets for Blue Note and clearly I remember the cover on this album set. It was based on a fine photograph taken by Bill Huges during a Christmas concert with my group at Town Hall in New York City (1954). This same unit performed at the worlds first jazz festival at Newport and was billed as the most promising new group of the year. Shortly thereafter, our little band was honored to be one of the very first to be featured at Carnegie Hall in a concert for the people of Israel.

The album Gil Mellé Quintet/Sextet 5020 marked the beginning of Dr. Rudy Van Gelder's career as a recording engineer with Blue Note. I brought Alfred and Rudy together, the beginning of a most celebrated association.

A little faith goes a long way!
—GIL MELLE
1998