LT-1038

Larry Young - Mother Ship

Released - 1980

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 7, 1969
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Herbert Morgan, tenor sax; Larry Young, organ; Eddie Gladden, drums.

553 tk.2 Visions
554 tk.6 Love Drops
555 tk.8 Trip Merchant
556 tk.12 Mother Ship
557 tk.13 Street Scene

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Mother Ship	Larry Young	February 7 1969
Street Scene	Larry Young	February 7 1969
Visions	Larry Young	February 7 1969
Side Two
Trip Merchant	Larry Young	February 7 1969
Love Drops	Larry Young	February 7 1969

Liner Notes

LARRY YOUNG

Born in Newark on October 7, 1940, Larry Young Jr began studying jazz and classical piano at a very early age. Bud Powell served as his first inspiration and his model for modern jazz. But it was not until 1959 that he began to take music seriously as a full time endeavor and as a means of self-expression.

Larry's shift of emphasis from piano to organ occurred circumstantially at the age of 14, when his father opened a Newark club that had an organ in it. Larry became immediately fascinated by the instrument and its many possibilities. He was in no way attracted to the stylized, cliche-ridden approach to the organ as a popular funk jazz vehicle. In fact, he later remarked that "it's a shame that so many organists are so commercial. This instrument can do anything and can be used so many ways with other instruments. I keep hearing so many things that I can do."

During the late fifties, Larry jammed with visiting jazz dignitaries and woodshedded with such local luminaries as Woody Shaw and Herbert Morgan. He worked a number of R&B gigs with Jimmy Ruching and others. But his jazz credentials officially began with a steady job in Lou Donaldson's group and a record date with Jimmy Forrest.

From 1960 to 1962, he made three albums as a leader for Prestige, although he was still in the process of developing his ideas and his identity He also worked in New York with Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Tommy Turrentine and Johnny Coles. Newark, which had given us Mobley and Wayne Shorter, was at this time nurturing a new breed of creators with Larry, Shaw, Herbert Morgan, Tyrone Washington, Grachan Moncur and Eddie Gladden among them.

In September of 1964, Larry played on Grant Green's Talkin' Bout with Elvin Jones on drums. That trio became the rhythm section for Larry's first album Into Something with Sam Rivers and two more Grant Green albums Street Of Dreams with Bobby Hutcherson and / Want To Hold Your Hand with Hank Mobley, all on Blue Note and all recorded within a seven month time frame.

Inspired by the music of John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor, Larry began to further test the capabilities and limits of the instrument with which he had chosen to challenge himself. He developed a strong friendship with Coltrane, who was fascinated by Larry's conversion to the principles of the Moslem faith (Larry would later use his Moslem name Khalid Yasim on some occasions). Larry would often visit the saxophonist at his Long Island home where they would play duets for hours. Sadly, no documentation of those musical encounters exist.

On November 10, 1965, Larry recorded his second Blue Note album. The instrumentation: organ, trumpet, tenor sax and drums. The cast: Larry, Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones. That album Unity remains a groundbreaker and an unheralded classic to this day. The material and the performances were exceptional. Especially Woody Shaw's The Moontrane and the organ-drums duet of Monk's Dream.

This album was and still is influential among musicians in many circles. But at the time of release, it wasn't exactly a runaway smash. Contemporary music fans resisted the sound and preconceptions of the organ, and the typical organ fan didn't want to hear anything new. All of this, of course, left Larry betwixt and between and tragically underappreciated.

Larry had a sense for voicings and a touch that had previously been thought only possible on the piano. Yet he was a total organist, whose feet could pump out an extraordinary bass line independent of his hands and who used the tonal characteristics and effects that were unique to the instrument. He literally redefined the organ without denying an iota of its identity. With the album Unity, Larry demonstrated that he was mentally and physically equipped to translate his own ideas and the new language of jazz through an instrument that was sinking in the quicksand of cliches and audience grabbing techniques. The great masters like Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith were still going strong and new talents like Don Patterson, John Patton and Freddie Roach were making their presence felt. But the market was overrun with moderately successful, second generation, third rate chitlin pumpers. And it was Larry Young that offered a way out of all that.

Grant Green in 1964 told Nat Hentoff, "One thing about Larry Young is that he is really an organist. He knows that instrument, and furthermore, unlike some organ players in jazz, Larry never gets in your way. On the contrary, he keeps building in and around what you are doing while always listening so that his comping is always a great help. He's much more flexible than organists usually are. And that makes it possible for him to comp specifically for each different player. Man, he even comps in a particular way for drums. Another thing is that Larry is always identifiable right away. You know it's him. It's his sound, his imagination and the way he creates melodic lines. His sense of melody is very fresh and very much his own."

Larry continued to record an album of his own music each year for Blue Note: Of Love And Peace in 1966, Contrasts in 1967, and Heaven On Earth in 1968. Each album was different, offering interesting repertoire and unusual instrumentation as well as a variety of creative musicians that included James Spaulding, George Benson, Eddie Gale, Byard Lancaster and Tyrone Washington.

He made his last Blue Note date on February 7, 1969, and it is the album that you now hold in your hands, released for the first time some 11 years after the recording. The instrumentation parallels Unity, but this time it's Lee Morgan, Herbert Morgan (no relation) and Eddie Gladden. About the late Lee Morgan, little need be said. He was a master, an individual, a creator. His total command of the past and own foresight into the future and uncanny spontaneity made him a perfect companion for Larry.

Herbert Morgan, who had been playing with Larry since their teenage years, was also featured on Of Love And Peace, Contrasts, and Heaven On Earth. Larry told Nat Hentoff, "Herbert Morgan, who grew up in Newark as I have, has been like a big brother to me, I remember when I was about thirteen and trying to stabilize my energies so that they could be used constructively, he helped me spiritually and musically. He embraced Islam before I did. He never left Newark much. He stayed here and grew." And from all reports, Morgan is still in Newark and still actively growing on his instrument.

Eddie Gladden has been a stabilizing influence and fiery inspiration for scores of groups in the New York and Newark area. He has recorded with Richie Cole, the late Eddie Jefferson, Ronnie Cuber and Bill Hardman among others in recent years. In the mid seventies, he was with the Horace Silver Quintet. And in the spring of 1977, he joined Dexter Gordon's quartet of which he is still a member. Eddie had recorded with Larry on Contrasts and Heaven On Earth, each of which offered one astonishing organ-drums duet.

This session features five fine Young originals and marked a growth in style that foreshadowed his later work with Tony Williams and Miles Davis. Listen especially to Larry's sense of dynamics and the unique sound that he extracts with a slowly rotating Leslie. His use of space over Gladden's rapid fire eight note ride on Mother Ship is fresh and disarming. Herbert Morgan's tenor solo locks in with the drums, while Lee Morgan probes his way over the rhythm with an effective half time stance.

Street Scene is funky, but on its own terms. Larry's solo is the highlight and conveys a feeling of true rejoicing.

Visions is a three part, 24 bar tune that is repeated twice before the solos burst forth. Eddie provides an eighth note, double time feel to the pulse. This sort of pulse and the long exposition are characteristic of Miles' music circa 1967. But this music is Larry Young all the way.

Trip Merchant also has elements that Larry and Miles shared at the time. Eddie rides a smooth, irresistible double time rhythm with a casual, but fully felt backbeat and those occasional, appropriate drum explosions. Larry is the prince of darkness here, weaving a solo with long, spacial, dark tones that logically spiral up into a tour de force. Lee Morgan leaps into the thick of things with his finest solo of the date, followed by a crisp and empathetic tenor solo from Herbert.

Love Drops is not the sentimental ballad that the title might suggest, but rather a solid, muscular jazz samba, performed with conviction and verve.

It might have been Larry's lack of public acceptance or an occasional fluff in the ensemble statements or the changing climate at Blue Note that caused this last date to remain unheard all these years. But the music remains fresh and vital. And its importance has increased, sadly enough, with the deaths of Larry and Lee.

Soon after this date, Larry would help to change the face of music as one third of Tony Williams' Lifetime with guitarist John McLaughlin. This trio was the first and, without a doubt, most honest and creative ensemble in fusion music. They spawned many imitators, including McLaughlin's own Mahavishnu Orchestra. Yet nothing matched the energy, excitement, dynamics, personality and creativity of Lifetime. Fusion became a sterile, predictable, manufactured form of what was meant to be startling and revolutionary. And everyone went to the bank, except Larry and Tony.

Larry also recorded a still unissued 15 minute jam with Jimi Hendrix in the same year and participated in Miles' Bitches Brew. In the early seventies, he recorded with John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana and made another album of his own for the definct Perception label with Pharoah Sanders among the sidemen.

In the middle of the decade, while still freelancing on the jazz scene, he tried to enter the funk sweepstakes, making two misguided albums for Arista. The albums didn't sell, which left Larry baffled and frustrated. He could not understand why musicians of far less ability and vision were so successful, while his efforts in the same idiom were not. More than once, I tried to explain that those others of lesser talent meant what they were doing while he was only intellectually trying to reproduce it. But Larry's personal frustration was never to be abated. He knew his worth, his foresight and his innovations, and that made his lack of recognition all the more disheartening.

He spent 1977 gigging with Houston Person, Jimmy Ponder and others, as well as leading his own group with tenor saxophonist Buddy Terry and drummer Joe Chambers. That phase is his work culminated with a duet album with Chambers for Muse Records.

On Tuesday, March 28, 1978, Larry's wife gave birth. His rather lucrative deal with Warner Bros. Records was finalized. And he was to open that night at a New York club with his new band. But Larry lay that afternoon in a hospital bed. And on Thursday, March 30, Larry Young died a needless death, a victim of the widespread disease known as hospital negligence and incompetence.

Larry was a wise, kind and loving man whose imposing stature was betrayed by his gentleness. He was a versatile, inventive and singular musician. We will miss the man and his music very much.

—Michael Cuscuna

Notes for the 2012 CD Edition

BST 84304

Larry Young - Heaven on Earth

Released - 1969

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, February 9, 1968
Byard Lancaster, alto sax, flute #1,2,4-6; Herbert Morgan, tenor sax #1,2,4,5; Larry Young, organ; George Benson, guitar #1,2,4-6; Eddie Gladden, drums; Althea Young, vocals #6.

2037 tk.1 Call Me
2038 tk.3 The Infant
2039 tk.6 The Cradle
2040 tk.10 Heaven On Earth
2041 tk.11 The Hereafter
2042 tk.12 My Funny Valentine

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
The Infant	Larry Young	February 9 1968
The Cradle	Larry Young	February 9 1968
The Hereafter	Larry Young	February 9 1968
Side Two
Heaven on Earth	Larry Young	February 9 1968
Call Me	Tony Hatch	February 9 1968
My Funny Valentine	Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers	February 9 1968

Liner Notes

THIS ALBUM reflects the continuing evolution of Larry Young—the music being the man. "All of the music here," Young told me, "is by way of tribute to what I've learned — the enlightenment I have experienced—from Elijah Muhammad. I would call it 'peaceful strength, the ability to communicate with other people regardless of race. You see, growing up, I met a lot of people who influenced me through the teachings of The Messenger, and for the past four years, I've been a member of a mosque. Islam has given me a broader scope of understanding and, through my music, a broader scope of expression. It's made my music more earthy. I always wanted to play music that has life in it, and I think I've been able to do that especially in this album.

"I want to emphasize," Young continued, "that contrary to some of the inaccuracies written about Islam and The Messenger, the effect of the teachings has to have been to produce a kind of beautiful strength. In my case, in this music. Let me go back in time. When I started out as a musician, I wanted to grow, and I was influenced by many different musicians—John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor, among them. I was becoming an artist, or was trying to. But I also came to realize that I had to do more. The new music was challenging to me as an artist, but I wanted to communicate widely too. I wanted to play for the people on the street; I wanted my music to relate to the people on the street."

THE INFANT, Young declares, is an illustration of what he calls "going back to the roots," The song, he says, "tells of the strength of life in our surroundings, in the streets, and it also says something else. I've been able to see through the years how the general level of street knowledge has risen, From infancy, so to speak, to the situation now when it's possible to communication with the people on the street on ail levels — intellectually and spiritually. Ail of that is in THE INFANT."

THE CRADLE is also about evolution. "It's about man being born, growing, learning to communicate with other men. Part of the feeling in that song consists of my understanding of what I've seen Miles Davis express in his music —peace, strength, maturity." Those same qualities suffuse THE HEREAFTER. There is in both a serious joy in the playing, in the collective act of creation, that makes these compositions, and the rest of the album, reverberate in the mind.

The idea of HEAVEN ON EARTH, Larry recalls, came from the title of an article he was reading in Muhammad Speaks, the national newspaper published weekly by Muhammads' Mosque No. 2 in Chicago. "That title," Young continued, "led me to think of those different moments in which a man can peacefully communicate with his surroundings. It's at those moments that you know what it is to be a man — to be able to express yourself without any unnecessary fears and thereby to be in real contact with everything that's around you. And then — this is all part of the formation of this composition—in 1968, I went to the annual Savior's Day Convention in Chicago and saw The Messenger in person for the first time. I was able to feel what he was speaking about, to understand about HEAVEN ON EARTH. One other thing. This song, along with THE INFANT, is particularly concerned with that getting at the roots I was talking about— with speaking to the people on the street."

CALL ME, one of the two songs in the album not written by Larry Young, is a piece he says people have often requested when he's playing. "It speaks for itself," Young said. ' 'It's about offering aid to anyone having a problem. And that too is what live learned from The Messenger. The universality of the call for aid, and of the call in response. You see, that's something else that isn't always understood about The Messenger. He's teaching universals."

MY FUNNY VALENTINE, Young says, "is another song I've liked. And in its way, it too expresses universal feelings. It has peaceful strength. It says music is beautiful." The vocalist is Althea Young, Larry Young's wife. "She has a strong under. standing," Young emphasizes, "of what she wants to do. And a very warm quality. 'Althea' means 'the healer: And that's what she has—a soothing quality."

I asked Young about the other musicians because they, like Althea Young, seemed so natural a part of Larry Young's overall conception in this album "I met Byard Lancaster," he said, "through Sunny Murray and Pharaoh Sanders. He is, as you know, part of the new music, but my thing is to bridge the gap between the new and the older roots. I feel like I've done it here. Both parts together can be very powerful. Herbert Morgan, who grew up in Newark as I have, has been like a big brother to me. I remember when I was about thirteen and trying to stabilize my energies so that they could be used constructively, he helped me spiritually and musically. He embraced Islam before I did.

"As for Eddie Gladden," Young continued, "he and I went to school together in Newark. There's a beautiful spiritual quality in his music. And George Benson, there's a man deeply rooted in his Feelings. We dug each other musically from the first time we met, and it was a pleasure to have him on this session."

For this listener, HEAVEN ON EARTH is an important watershed in the evolution of Larry Young's music. The album is characterized by a maturity, with no loss of fire, that should expand his audience considerably. Listening to it again, I remember what Young said of Herbert Morgan: "He never left Newark much. He stayed here and grew." It's a description that also applies to Larry Young. I think both are about to do o lot of traveling.

—NAT HENTOFF

BST 84266

Larry Young - Contrasts

Released - June 1968

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, September 18, 1967
Hank White, flugelhorn #1-3,5; Herbert Morgan, Tyrone Washington, tenor sax #1-3,5; Larry Young, organ; Eddie Wright, guitar #2,6; Eddie Gladden, drums; Stacey Edwards, congas #1-3,6; Althea Young, vocals #6.

1945 tk.4 Evening
1946 tk.6 Majestic Soul
1947 tk.7 Means Happiness
1949 tk.11 Major Affair
1948 tk.17 Tender Feelings
1950 tk.21 Wild Is The Wind

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Majestic Soul	Larry Young	September 18 1967
Evening	Larry Young	September 18 1967
Major Affair	Larry Young	September 18 1967
Side Two
Wild Is the Wind	Dimitri Tiomkin, Ned Washington	September 18 1967
Tender Feelings	Tyrone Washington	September 18 1967
Means Happiness	Tyrone Washington	September 18 1967

Liner Notes

LARRY YOUNG is of love, peace, restraint, patience, understanding, compassion and orderliness. Larry is also a young man whose talent and depth of perception are far beyond his years. In fact, if we were to trance the genesis of his recording career on Blue Note, we'd find ourselves at Blue Note 4187. That's the point at which I got hip to this "Young Demon" of the organ. I found myself attracted to a tune in that set called Paris Eyes. It was at that point that I discovered Larry Young had some, other ideas in mind for that often overworked and frequently misunderstood instrument. Yeah, that was the side, Into Somethin'.

Selectivity is another key word and but one more of the many facets of Larry Young's make-up. By that, I mean he has the ability to choose the men who will best interpret the ideas he sets down. I further believe that it's the interpretation rather than the mere "playing of notes" that is most important. Larry always offers us a challenge, that of really having to open up our ears, as it were, and discovering those other vistas that he points to in his music. Certainly, if you have followed his path on record, you must know that he has explored many different avenues of thought and sound, yet each of his albums, ("Contrasts" brings to four the total on Blue Note) is related to the next.

No matter how wide or bold the range, it all leads back to oneself. Kahlil Gibran said: "For self is a sea, boundless and measureless." believe the diversity of Larry Young stems from the natural inquisitiveness of the man. He questions the universe and seeks the answers through his religion and his music. His music is vital, is alive and indeed is a testimony for all who will hear his meaning. His soul, if you will, is "Majestic". In it burns a flame so bright, that at its apogee, and its ebb, the brilliance suggests all that is the fervor, determination and beauty of the youthful Black Revolution in America. In fact, beauty is a constant factor with Larry, and encompasses all that he does.

Majestic Soul is like a journey straight into the eye of a hurricane. Once inside, we find a vibrant rhythm session in progress. Stacey Edward's conga supplies the rhythmic base on which everyone dances.

Majestic Soul fades into Evening and as the darker mood sets in, we find silhouettes in sound, with each man darting in and out, and each lighting the others' path. Together, they leave luminous trails.

Now we come to Major Affair. Listen, to the support Larry gets from Eddie Gladden. Listen, just the two of them, it's their thing, they skip, dance, sing and play. The mood has now been set for the ensuing contrasts.

The scene changes, the focus sharpens to reveal Althea, Larry's wife who offers a wistful reevaluation of a tune that is now a standard, Wild is The Wind. Based on what Althea does in this one tune, I would like to hear her on some other material, possibly originals. Althea's approach to song vibrates deep within me and I like it. One gets the feeling she really listens to what she is singing.

Tender Feelings, a Tyrone Washington contribution to the date, is kind of a montage piece following closely on the heels of Wind. In fact it seems almost like an extension of the previous idea, in terms of the mood it evokes. It has a very pretty melody line. The theme comes on like dawn with a peaceful, bittersweet air. Fragrant is it's nature. Our young composer, who is a Blue Note recording artist, is already an alumnus of one of the Blue Note heavies, Horace Silver.

With the increasing awareness of, and interest in Astrology, I feel compelled to tell you that Air, Water, Fire and Earth are represented in this set. For your information and edification I submit the following:

Larry Young: Libra/ Air
Tyrone Washington: Gemini/ Air
Herbert Morgan: Virgo/ Earth
Edward Gladden: Sagittarius/ Fire
Edward Wright: Leo/ Fire
Stacey Edwards: Leo/ Fire
Hank White: Cancer/ Water
Althea Young: Gemini/ Air

The foregoing is offered as an aid in charting the progress of these men and Althea. In the case of the latter, I hope she is sufficiently encouraged to pursue her musical aspirations.

Hogogugliang is the word that Means Happiness. The term derives from Eastern thought. At one point in the development of these ideas and thoughts, Larry and I got together to exchange a few ideas and to just "vibrate" in general. The pleasure of his company is always reassuring and quite comforting. Larry always seems to know what you're (I'm) going to say next, really. He's very sensitive and open, and that involves heart, mind and ears. Anyhow, on that rainy afternoon we listened to a test pressing of "Contrasts". As we talked and listened, I noticed Larry kept getting up, and going over to the box to play Means Happiness again and again. Periodically, we'd put on some "Price of Darkness, (Larry and I share a prodigious love for Miles, his musicians and his music.) Oh, we had a ball. Pretty soon, Larry went back to New Jersey where he lives and I continued what I was doing, but I couldn't get the tune out of my mind. To this day, I don't know what it is that Larry gets from the tune, but apparently I'm not getting it. I suspect that I'm getting something entirely different. Chances are you will too. After all, why shouldn't you get something different? A musical experience can be shared, but it can still be, for the most part, a very personal experience. We may both listen to the same thing at the same time, but we don't necessarily hear the same thing. Tell you what—you listen to Means Happiness and see what you get. All of his music here comes from a very private region of Larry's mind, yet, he's able to share. My annotations here are personal opinions shared. By the same token, you may not agree with my findings. Be that as it may, one thing is certain, it all goes back to the personal thing.

There is one point around which we can all rally, and that is the fact that Larry Young's approach to his instrument is decidedly and delightfully different and fresh. Fundamentally the difference between Larry and many of his contemporaries is that he chooses to make music first. Since his choice of instruments is the organ he uses it as a tool in making his music. Making music rather than playing the organ becomes his apparent goal. Now don't misunderstand, Larry Young knows his instrument. Knowledge is power too, but instead of overpowering us with sound, he makes music.

In summary, "Contrasts" is another excursion by Larry Young into the realm of Love and Beauty by making music. Everyone else on this date is to be commended for so sensitively and tastefully contributing to the overall success of this voyage.

— ED WILLIAMS — Maiden Voyage WILB-FM N.Y.C.

75th Anniversary CD Reissue Notes

Larry Young's fourth Blue Note album "Contrasts" finds him expanding his sound and his ensemble. Drawn primarily from the ranks of talented musicians from his home town of Newark, Young, for the first time, writes most of the material for his album. The exceptions are Tyrone Washington's "Tender Feelings" and the standard "Wild Is The Wind", sung by his wife Althea.

Larry uses his ensemble (two tenor saxophonies, fluegelhorn, guitar, drums and congas) in a variety of combinations to achieve a wide range of sounds and textures. Many of the tracks are under six minutes and show a greater degree of detail and focus than previous album projects. One of the more outstanding tracks is "Major Affair" which is a dialogue between Larry and drummer Eddie Gladden.

Michael Cuscuna

BLP 4242

Larry Young - Of Love And Peace

Released - 1967

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 28, 1966
Eddie Gale, trumpet; James Spaulding, alto sax, flute; Herbert Morgan, tenor sax; Larry Young, organ; Wilson Moorman III, Jerry Thomas, drums.

1776 tk.2 Pavanne
1777 tk.4 Of Love And Peace
1778 tk.8 Seven Steps To Heaven
1779 tk.10 Falaq

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Pavanne	Morton Gould	July 28 1966
Of Love and Peace	Larry Young	July 28 1966
Side Two
Seven Steps to Heaven	Miles Davis/Victor Feldman	July 28 1966
Falaq	Larry Young	July 28 1966

Liner Notes

LARRY YOUNG is a large, attractive, sincere, articulate and apparently peaceful man. His carriage is quietly dignified, and as salient with him as any physical feature. There is very little show about him, and no put on. To him, questions are requests for knowledge; and when he answers them, it is with words chosen carefully because the truth and the idea of it are in them, not because they are colorful sounds which can decorate the silence in the room.

There is much of the some quality in his music. It can have, as in Pavanne, the kind of unhurried drive that makes the room turn; or, as in Of Love and Peace, it can be a set of eerily pacific dialogues which flow in and out of each other without contrivance or elaboration. He is probably the only serious modern full time organist in jazz.

Young uses his organ as a moving point of reference for his group, not merely in terms of chord changes (he goes way past that), but also in the actual materials that he uses in both his solo and accompanying work. There are, for example, actual dissonances struck between Larry and the soloists which sound consonant because of the organ’s full, round sound.

In the last three of his twenty-six years, Larry Young’s development hos been astounding. His lost record, Unity (Blue Note 4221 BLP4221) showed a rare enough organist, one who didn’t just toss off crowd satisfying funk chords or standard neo-bop phrases borrowed from other instruments, but who played difficult extended lines which were obviously contemporary. Now it can be said that Larry Young has developed a brand new conception of the organ as an instrument of composition and of improvisation, and it is his belief that this realization has come about as the result of religious experiences.

Larry is a Suni Muslim (an older if smaller sect than Elijah Mohammed’s Nation of Islam) and he has found in Islam the kind of interior peace that accelerates growth. He believes in one God, but in all prophets. He is constantly speaking of the spirituality of his music, of how oneness with the creator has moved his music to o higher level. “There is more coming out of me as a being now, and so there’s more coming out of my music. Thoughts ore only thoughts, but if you have o spiritual foundation you can make music a part of your being.” Islam is a faith which ultimately affirms life, no matter the fatalism which Western writers have imputed to it, and this affirmation has been a help to Lorry Young’s attempt to create a dynamic music which is relatively free of tensions. “Since I learned to approach life as a positive phenomenon, I find my experiences now more uplifting. All of us are trying in some way to glorify the creator, or creation, if you’re not religious, and everyone who approaches the music must be approaching it for that reason. This keeps us working on a very high level, and keeps the music pure.”

Larry started his musical education almost from the cradle. His father, Larry Young Sr., is on accomplished musician who used to hove his rhythm and blues playing friends over to practice in the room adjoining the infant Lawrence’s. It was only a few years (Lorry says he was too young to remember) before Larry was himself making music. His father soon had him taking intensive piano training which continued until he was seventeen years old. “At seventeen,” says lorry, “I started connecting music with life,” whereas he now is involved with “correlating music with knowledge. When I was seventeen, I found that I had to dismiss all that formal training and concentrate on true musical self-expression.”

Young Larry was doing what most aspiring young jazz musicians do at his age: hanging around the jazz clubs in Newark (where he still makes his home) and sitting in at every opportunity, “finding out what was happening.” He made some memorable sessions at Lens and Lens where he played with men of the calibre of Philly Joe Jones, Johnny Coles, Charlie Persip and Hank Mobley, and where he also met some contemporaries with whom he was subsequently to record, like Woody Shaw and Herbert Morgan. He also accompanied several blues singers, including the great Jimmy Rushing.

When Larry was fourteen, his father opened a nightclub in Newark, The Shindig, and installed an organ. Larry Jr. was an immediate convert, finding in the organ a number of potentialities which no other instrument could begin to offer. “It’s a shame,” he says, “that so many jazz organists ore so commercial. This instrument can do almost anything, and can be used so many ways with other instruments. I keep hearing so many things that I con do. To me this record is only o beginning.”

The idea of using two drums come at a Muslim banquet just after he hod entered Islam. There were several drummers present, and Larry joined in on the organ. “It was a spiritual experience,” he recalls, “there was so much more life in the music. I felt that I hod to record that way.”

And here it is, a truly electric musical presentation, and considerable credit for the success of this record must go to the two drummers, Wilson Moorman III and Jerry Thomas, who play together so empathetically that they meld into one. All in all, as Larry emphasizes, this was a group effort, with all of the participating musicians (excepting Spaulding, who was otherwise employed) joining him in a two week non-playing gig by way of preparing for this date. It is to Spaulding’s credit that he could join this intimate group and play with such excellence.

Morton Gould’s familiar Pavanne takes on new life under Larry Young’s hand. This is a tune that Young heard when he was a teenager and hos always wonted to ploy. It opens with the breezy contrapuntal quality of one of Charlie Mingus’ early outdoor exercises and, after the bridge, gets into the context of the “Tradition of the Man,” with Herbert Morgan’s outspoken solo. Eddie Gale, who was at that bazaar where Larry first heard two drums, plays a growling, rasping solo which leads into Spaulding’s gentle scream. Then follows Larry’s solo, which is direct, imaginative, broadly conceived, and self-effacing enough to showcase the two drummers. It closes on a crescendo that is uplifting and powerful. An excellent job of setting up the date and introducing the musicians.

Of Love and Peace was so named because Young feels that people have confused the emotive material of the New Music with anger and frustration. It was done in one take, without arrangement. “I told no one how to play. I told them it was all free and that, since no one was doing anything contrary to anyone else, there could be no problem.” There was none. This is a remarkable piece which the listener might use to audition this record. The screams and wails which ore port of the vocabulary of the New Music are here, but Young’s provided here a context of positive self-expression and group harmony without regimentation, viz., “when you exercise control, you destroy individual knowledge.”

Larry heard Miles’ version of Seven Steps to Heaven and thought its changes were broad enough to allow the musicians to stretch out. There is considerable drive coming out of this swift and strong rhythm section, with Moorman and Thomas on top of everything but each other. Again Gale displays the form which justifies his place in Cecil Taylor’s most important band; Morgan shows what Young mean? when he called him “a comer with a correct ear and a very positive kind of knowledge,” and James Spaulding establishes his position as a leading new altoist. But it is Larry Young who is the moving reference, the unobtrusive leader, and his solo is considerably more linear than most organists ever try to be. This is Wilson Moormon’s first solo.

Faloq (dawn in Arabic when all creation arises and gives praise to Allah) is another spontaneous composition; Young told them the key, described the tonal center, let Jerry Thomas start, and then played a melody which the soloists could either use or not. Another successful piece, full of the sounds and colors of people in harmony. “As salt resolved in the ocean/I was swallowed in God’s sea,/past faith, post unknowing,/post doubt, past certainty”, wrote the Sufi poet Rumi, thinking much like Larry Young.

Larry Young dedicates this record to his mother and father.

—A. B. SPEILMAN

BLP 4221

Larry Young - Unity

Released - August 1966

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 10, 1965
Woody Shaw, trumpet #1,2,4-6; Joe Henderson, tenor sax #1,2,4-6; Larry Young, organ; Elvin Jones, drums.

1676 tk.5 If
1677 tk.17 Beyond All Limits
1678 tk.18 Monk's Dream
1679 tk.21 The Moontrane
1680 tk.22 Zoltan
1681 tk.25 Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise

Session Photos

Photos: © Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images 

https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Zoltan	Woody Shaw	November 10 1965
Monk's Dream	Thelonious Monk	November 10 1965
If	Joe Henderson	November 10 1965
Side One
The Moontrane	Woody Shaw	November 10 1965
Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise	Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg	November 10 1965
Beyond All Limits	Woody Shaw	November 10 1965

Liner Notes

THE continuing growth of Larry Young is compellingly clear in this album, which is regarded by Young as the most mature set he’s recorded. It’s called Unity because, Larry points out, “although everybody on the date is very much an individualist, they were all in the same frame of mood. It was evident from the start that everything was fitting together.”

As I noted on Larry’s first album as a leader for Blue Note, Into Somethin’ (4187), he is a remarkably flexible and attentive organist. Unlike too many of his contemporaries on the instrument, he doesn’t swallow up his colleagues in a torrent of notes and volume. Or, as Joe Henderson puts it, “With some organists, it’s hard to compete against all that juice. But Larry listens to you and complements you.” Also characteristic of Young’s playing, as Don Nelsen observed in a Down Beat review of Into Somethin’, is “his deft, controlled touch... Young treats his notes...respectfully, articulating them clearly and with a laudable sensitivity to dynamics.”

It’s difficult, moreover, to imagine a more apt choice of musicians for the particular challenges of this session. Elvin Jones, a drummer to whom the words “flexible” and “attentive” apply fully, lays down the quality of pulse that, as Young observes, “lets you do whatever you feel on top of the rhythm.” As for Joe Henderson, it’s by now an established fact that he is one of the more original and persistently evolving of the newer tenor saxophonists. He contributes substantially to the Horace Silver quintet with which he’s been for about a year and a half; and he has also proved more than equal to a wide variety of Blue Note settings — from basic blues to the most advanced, exploratory jazz.

Woody Shaw, a member of the Silver unit since June, 1965, is one of the new generation of jazzmen who — like drummer Tony Williams — reveal such stunning technical skill and conceptual inventiveness while still in their teens. Joe Henderson first heard Woody when the latter was seventeen, and, says Joe, “he shocked me then. He’s got all the basics down, he’s developed his own style, and his future is without limits.”

Woody was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, on December 24, 1944, but was raised in Newark, New Jersey. In the sixth grade he was drawn to the trumpet, his earliest favorites having been Louis Armstrong and Harry James. Then he heard Dizzy (“I flipped”), and by the time Woody was thirteen, he was also listening hard to Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd. Thereafter “a whole lot of cats” influenced him — among them Kenny Dorham, Clark Terry and Nat Adderley. As for his current shaping forces, he lists the late Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis (“the way he’s playing now”). Almost entirely self-taught as an instrumentalist and composer, Shaw believes that “it’s not what you learn in school but what you hear musically in what’s happening around you that counts.” He listens a great deal to classical music — particularly Bartok, Hindemith, Kodaly and Schoenberg — and to the jazz avant-garde. Shaw left Newark Arts High School at the age of sixteen because “I had to play,” and has since worked with Willie Bobo, Eric Dolphy and Rufus Jones before joining Silver. He was supposed to have joined Eric Dolphy in Europe in the summer of 1964, but Dolphy died just before he arrived. Shaw came anyway, and free-lanced there with Larry Young, Kenny Clarke, Donald Byrd and Nathan Davis before being invited by Horace Silver to join him.

The opening track, Zoltan, is Woody’s. It begins with the march from Zoltan Kodaly’s Hary Jonas Suite “because I liked the way he used the bass line.” Then comes Shaw’s own material which is based on the Lydian mode. Note the crisp authority of Elvin Jones, the tangy blend of the horns, the disciplined power and stinging clarity of Shaw, the fire and searing beat of Joe Henderson along with the concise structural unity of his solo, and the singular expressivity of Young. As Woody Shaw says of Larry, “his technique is out of sight, he has very big ears and a beautiful time conception. Larry is where jazz is going on the organ!”

Thelonious Monk’s craggily evocative Monk’s Dream reveals Young’s understanding of the essence of Monk’s conception, including his wit, the asymmetrical logic of his lines and the leaping, jagged momentum of his time. With only Elvin Jones accompanying Young on this track, the performance was made in a single take — a remarkable demonstration of the complex affinity between these two complicated musicians in one of the most absorbing jazz conversations on record in recent years.

If is Joe Henderson’s tune. A 12-bar song, it has a blues feeling but the changes move differently than the conventional blues patterns. “I wrote it,” Henderson says, “in a way that permits the soloist a wider choice of notes.” The first solo is by Joe — blistering incisive, big-toned, and with a fusion of beat and sound that recalls those years in which the highest accolade one could give a jazzman was that he was o “hot” player. Listen particularly to Elvin in the background for an illustration of how astutely he can stimulate a soloist without getting in his way, Woody Shaw comes on with an authority, a brass-proud tone and a firmness of ideas that make him sound — in view of his youth — as if he’d started playing before he could walk. And then there is the building, spiraling, swirling warmth and inventiveness of Larry Young who is one of the very few organists who sound as if he’s actually telling an evolving story — and not just pounding out a repetitive message — as he improvises. Note too that even when his volume and emotions rise, he doesn’t sacrifice clarity of line.

The Moontrane was written by Woody Shaw when he was about eighteen. “It’s dedicated,” the composer explains, “to John Coltrane, as can be heard by the harmonic cycles in it. And with regard to the melodic development, I tried to capture the kind of feeling that would result if he were to have played the tune.” Especially vivid here is Woody’s lyricism — flowing and virile, clean-edged but passionate. Henderson too has the capacity to envelop the deep “cry” in his playing within a strong, personal, malleable but never fuzzy framework of style and Conception. And once more there is the continually exploring, continually building — and continually self-controlled — passion and acute musical intelligence of Larry Young. For a climax, Elvin Jones explodes in ordered ardor.

Softly as in a Morning Sunrise is reanimated here in a sizzling performance begun by Joe Henderson who gets more from the tune than I thought there was to be taken. Worth digging is the swift, sure, economical camping of Larry Young. Woody comes on with staccato force (and listen to the whirlpool below set by Young and Elvin Jones). Young’s solo is, ¡n part, a fascinating dialogue with Jones, both moving inexorably forward. Then, the tension rising, Young talks with the riffing horns, and the record seems to be populated by a blazing big band. Woody returns us to the melody — or rather, more than the melody — and there ends what strikes me as a burningly durable performance of Softly As In A Morning Sunrise.

The swift Beyond All Limits is by Woody, and was also composed when the trumpeter was eighteen. The chord changes are challenging but once mastered, are intended to lead the soloist to a relatively free modal concept using the different possibilities endemic to the pentatonic scale. “By the title,” says Shaw, “I meant that once the inherent difficulties of the tune are solved, there are no limits as to where you can go with it.”

In the last track, as throughout the album, everyone plays with an infectious, almost overpowering zeal to meet and fulfill musical challenges. I’ve rarely heard an album with as much sustained, collective spirit as this. Spirit, moreover, that is allied with technical prowess, originality, individuality and yet collective identity. From note one, the music takes hold and never drops into the routine. Larry Young is not one for long-range planning. His philosophy is that you keep trying to get things together — in your own playing and in the men with whom you choose to play. “At one point,” he adds, “when things ore ready, they happen!” They happened here.

—NAT HENTOFF

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT UNITY

From its first appearance in the world of jazz, the Hammond B-3 organ has been a controversial instrument.

Some revere it as a natural platform for blues expression, or a keyboard approximation of big-band dynamics, or the harbinger of old/new acid grooves; and others, many of whom fashion themselves the most "serious" of jazz fans, consider it a whiny, unsubtle, roller-rinky contraption deserving neither attention nor respect. For nearly a quarter century, the surest way to make listeners in the latter category do an about-face has been to play them this album. Organ fans think it's pretty swell, too.

Jack McDuff once likened Larry Young's conception to that of John Coltrane, and Unity, with drummer Elvin Jones in the •rhythm section and both compositions and horn soloists reflecting Coltrane's example, really reinforces Young's connection to the most powerful influence of the time. The point, however, is not simply that an organist can employ the harmonic language and the incantatory patterns that Coltrane favored, just as the point of the incredible "Monk's Dream" is not simply that Young can develop ideas thematically and use space like Monk. These concepts are integrated first and foremost into a voice totally personal to the player and his instrument, voice that happened to be one of the most empathetic in a period when stress was placed upon doing one's own thing. Young had a gift for hooking up with his fellow musicians, and he does not play a single selfish note on this album. His feeling for Jones, previously demonstrated on four sessions where they were joined by guitarist Grant Green, is only magnified here, especially on what is truly a "dream" duet.

The seriousness of Young's intentions are reinforced by the presence and performance of his accompanists. Jones, who was concluding a five year tenure with Coltrane at the time, brings his superhuman technical and spiritual strength to the music. Joe Henderson, whose growing popularity as a leader on Blue Note was aided tremendously by his galvanizing contributions to such hits as Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder" and Horace Silver's "Song For My Father," proves again to be one of the great interpreters of the era. Henderson's capacity to ground his most eccentric flights with nods to jazz tradition (as when he quotes and then transmogrifies Charlie Parker's "Buzzy" on his own blues "If"), his unflappable poise on the three challenging Woody Shaw originals and his capacity for finding something totally personal to say on the oft-played "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise" confirmed the growing suspicion that he was one of the giants.

Woody Shaw, only 20 years old at the time and known primarily for recording with Eric Dolphy two years earlier, was the real surprise on Unity. His playing had gained in assurance and individuality since his appearance with Dolphy (when some listeners suspected that "Woody Shaw" was a pseudonym for Freddie Hubbard), and his writing proved to be equally bold and distinctive. The ascension of Shaw's Coltrane tribute "The Moontrane" to the jazz standard pantheon should not obscure the excellence of "Zoltan" and "Beyond All Limits." Unity was a breakthrough album for Shaw to an even greater extent than for his Newark pal Young, and it is unfortunate that commercial shifts in the jazz business did not allow the trumpeter to expand upon the promise of his contribution here with albums of his own for several years.

In rereading Nat Hentoff's original liner notes, one senses an enthusiasm tempered only by the knowledge that music must withstand the test of time before it can be considered classic. In rehearing Unity (which I eagerly purchased upon its initial release) for the umpteenth time, I can only second Hentoff's superlatives. Treasure this album, and share it with an organ-averse friend.

— Bob Blumenthal, 1999

Blue Note Spotlight - May 2013

http://www.bluenote.com/spotlight/the-jazz-organ-shake-up-larry-youngs-unity/

If you happened to be a fan of the jazz organ sound in 1965, you knew exactly what to expect when you stepped into a club – greasy blues, ballads and jazz warhorses played at racecar tempos.

Unity changed that. In one elegant stroke. All by itself.

Embracing modal harmony and the freer, more open structures/language favored by the rising crew of post-bop musicians, Larry Young expanded commonly held notions of what was possible on the instrument; his brisk, restless, masterfully syncopated performances on this album brought the organ into the modern post-bop conversation.

The Newark-born Young started out like just about everyone who aspired to B3 greatness – contending with the towering presence of Jimmy Smith, the trailblazer who defined jazz organ. Young learned the basics, and developed a credible approach within the tradition – his recording debut, in 1960, shows a surprisingly individual take on the “grits and gravy” sound.

Fast forward a few years. By the time of this, his second Blue Note date, Young was determined to push beyond what had been done before, and was well-equipped, from a technique standpoint, to do that. He was conversant in free jazz, as well as the plateauing chord voicings used by John Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner and the polyrhythmic roiling of Coltrane’s drummer, Elvin Jones, who is behind the kit on Unity. Young “got” the new jazz aesthetic, and used both unique chord voicings and basslines handled via footpedals to create his own sound for it. Young choreographed elaborate agitations, all by himself: Starting with a terse rhythmic motif behind a soloist, he’d knead and develop a phrase over an extended period until it sent the group’s efforts into collective frenzy. His secret weapons included perpetually oscillating, color-changing chords, and he used them with painterly precision, shaping dramatic peaks and valleys behind a soloist. Lots of organ demons dropped bombs at key moments; Young’s crisply executed devices arrived with galvanic force, their sophisticated harmonies suggesting thrilling and profoundly new pathways.

From the opening war-dance taunt of “Zoltan,” written by the trumpet player Woody Shaw, it’s clear that Young wants Unity to be more intellectually challenging than the typical Blue Note blowing session.

The melody, handled by Shaw and the tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, is a study in fits and starts. Young’s jabs land across and against the beat, hinting at – but never fully tipping into – anarchy. Henderson seizes this instantly, and within the first measures it’s clear that his notions of agitation align with Young’s; his spiraling lines fit uncannily into the terse offbeats from the organ. This isn’t solo dazzle – it’s a conversation between well-matched modernists.

Young’s own solos – particularly those on “Softly As in A Morning Sunrise” and the electrifying duet with drummer Elvin Jones on “Monk’s Dream” – contrast powerfully with the fast-talking daredevil approach popularized by Smith and emulated by every other organist. Young can do that – there are more than a few breathless extended runs here – but he mostly concentrates on wide intervallic leaps and fitful, unexpected changes in mood. And like all the great post-Coltrane soloists, he’s inclined to shift tactics at will: His choruses on “Monk’s Dream” hit outbreaks of dissonant tumult and sullen areas of introspection and points along the spectrum in between – at each stop, he executes with snapping intent, an audible sense of purpose.

Anyone who ever longed to shake up a set-in-its ways tradition can relate to Young’s attempt to update jazz organ. He started with a powerful idea, blending hard bop, Coltrane harmony and “new thing” rhythm on an instrument uniquely suited to such a mix. But that’s just the concept stage. What makes Unity such a landmark is the way Young involves these incredible players in his quest – they seize his vision, then work together (hence the title) to overhaul the status quo of the jazz organ world. It’s a shame Young died young (at 38, from complications of pneumonia), because as is unmistakable here, this bold musician had a lot of upheaval in him.

75th Anniversary CD Reissue Liner Notes

After a trio of solid but unexceptional albums for Prestige, organist Larry Young's musical identity began to emerge in 1964 when he signed with Blue Note Records. He, Grant Green and Elvin Jones made four albums in rapid succession including Young's debut for the label with saxophonist Sam Rivers. Young was taking the organ out of the conventional mainstream at a rapid rate of development.

His second album as a leader, "Unity" was not an especially big seller at the time, but it was highly regarded and influential among the next generation of musicians who emerged in the '780s. "Unit" launched the careers of young and Woody Shaw, who contributed three brilliant and contrasting originals to the album. Shaw was a friend and collaborator of Young's from Newark. And they'd working together intensively in Europe heading up to the recording of this album. Shaw and Joe Henderson were Horace Silver's front line at the time.

Young's kinship with Elvin had already been established. Give the enormous influence that John Coltrane had on Young, that affinity makes a lot of sense. Ironically, exactly two weeks after this session, John Coltrane would expand his quartet to a sextet to record "Meditations", which would set in motion the circumstances that led to Elvin Jones leaving that group.

What every piece on this album suggests is that there are infinite possibilities in music and these four brilliant players were among those who embraced breaking the rules and finding new musical territory. Perhaps that's why this album was so influential on later musicians. Added to the original album are four newly discovered alternate takes; two takes of Joe Henderson's "If" and one take each of two of Woody's compositions.

- Michael Cuscuna