GXF-3061

Bobby Hutcherson - Oblique

Released - 1979

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 21, 1967
Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Herbie Hancock, piano; Albert Stinson, bass; Joe Chambers, drums.

1922 tk.2 Subtle Neptune
1923 tk.7 My Joy
1925 tk.16 Theme From Blow Up
1926 tk.20 Oblique
1927 tk.25 Bi-Sectional
1924 tk.28 Til Then

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Til Then	Bobby Hutcherson	July 21 1967
My Joy	Bobby Hutcherson	July 21 1967
Theme From Blow Up	Herbie Hancock	July 21 1967
Side Two
Subtle Neptune	Bobby Hutcherson	July 21 1967
Oblique	Joe Chambers	July 21 1967
Bi-Sectional	Joe Chambers	July 21 1967

Liner Notes

Born in Los Angeles on January 27,1941, Bobby Hutcherson obtained the background in piano and percussion that makes for a perfect vibist. In the late fifties, he gigged around Los Angeles with Curtis Amy, Carmel Jones and Charles Lloyd among others. He guested with the Les McCann trio on two tunes for Pacific Jazz, and, in September of 1961, recorded four titles for the company under his own leadership with a quintet that included tenor saxophonist Walter Berton. That session was never issued.

A gig with the Billy Mitchell-Al Grey quintet brought him his first widely known record dates and, more important, brought him to New York where his impact among musicians was immediate. He worked frequently in the quintets of Eric Dolphy and Jackie McLean. It was with McLean that he came to the attention of Blue Note Records. During 1963 and 1964, he participated in several classic albums, such as McLean's One Step Beyond and Destination Out, Grachan Moncur's Evolution, Andrew Hill's Judgement and Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch. Another classic date of the period was Grant Green's Idle Moments, a intimate exercise in creativity that was recorded on November 4, 1963 with Green, Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, Bob Cranshaw and Al Harewood. Pleased with the amazing chemistry of this sextet, Alfred Lion of Blue Note took the same personnel into the studio on December 29, 1963 for Bobby Hutcherson's first album as a leader. But luck was not with them on that day, and that session, like the Pacific Jazz date, remains unissued.

1965 proved a far more fruitful and accelerated year for the vibist. Aside from Blue Note dates with Jackie McLean and Grant Green among others and Impulse dates with Archie Shepp, Charles Tolliver and Grachan Moncur, Hutch cut two masterpiece albums under his own name: Dialogue and Components. An important common thread to these two albums was the drumming and unique compositions of Joe Chambers.

In fact, Joe's playing and, in most cases, his compositions would be present on all but one of Hutch's New York recording dates for Blue Note which spanned 1965 to 1969. Chambers was raised in Philadelphia and got his earliest professional experience on the road with name R & B bands before settling in New York to contribute his creative playing and writing talents to the jazz scene there. His first major breakthrough came of Freddie Hubbard's Breaking Point record, which also contained his tune Mirrors.

Schooled privately in piano and percussion, Chambers studied composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory, American University in Washington D.C. and with Hall Overton and his brother Steve Chambers, a distinguished modern classical composer in his own right. As a drummer, Joe joined the inner circle of Blue Note regulars for many years.

In February, 1966, Hutch made his third Blue Note album in a quartet setting with Chambers, Herbie Hancock and Bob Cranshaw. The result, Happenings, featured one Hancock tune with the remainder penned by Bobby. The absence of Chambers' compositional concepts brought the album into a more conventional realm.

On July 21, 1967, Hutch assembled the same quartet with the brilliant young Albert Stinson replacing Cranshaw and produced this beautiful album, released here for the first time. The presence of Stinson and the balanced program of compositions by Bobby, Herbie and Joe provides a well rounded program that covers an incredible amount of territory.

Albert Stinson, born in Cleveland, Ohio on August 21 1944, was an astonishing bassist in technique and invention, who worked in Los Angeles with Terry Gibbs, Frank Rosolino, and Charles Lloyd before beginning a long and fruitful relationship with Chico Hamilton. His recorded output is tragically small, making this album all the more significant. Touring with Larry Coryell, Stinson died on the road from an overdose in June, 1969.

Herbie Hancock, who appeared on Components as well as Happenings, contributes his Theme From Blow Up to this album. Although he composed the entire score to Antonioni's film Blow-Up and recorded the soundtrack album, this is the only wholly jazz interpretation of any of the material from the film that he ever attempted.

Chambers' Oblique is a unique line with an insistent rhythmic urgency. Hutch and Hancock manage to swing and flow within its unusual context. Joe executes a polyrhythmic drum solo of incredible technique and musiciality. His Bi-Sectional takes us even further out with some absolutely astonishing moments of counterpoint and collective interplay. Stinson gives us the luxury of a powerful, if brief, bass solo. After a piano-bass dialogue, Bobby moves to the drums for a section of percussive explosions between him and Chambers on tympani. As Bobby moves back to the vibes, Joe switches to the gong and finally back to the drums. The discipline and intelligence with which these men deal with freer forms puts a great deal of the music of the sixties into perspective.

As Chambers told Nat Hentoff in discussing the Components albums, "What I'm working more and more in is a fusion of free counterpoint and complex rhythm patterns that will create a sound — a core — around which each part will rotate. And with no definite rhythm... It's time that's felt collectively...Bobby knows how to accompany. He plays behind other musicians better than anyone I've ever heard. And in addition to his facility, he knows how to use the vibes orchestrally. Also he's superb in terms of creating and sustaining atmospheric passages. And of particular importance to my writing, Bobby knows exactly what to do to be an independent voice. He has the capacity to keep going in his own direction while never losing his rapport with the other voices. Another thing about Bobby is that he knows tradition and is part of it. In his playing, you can hear what's gone before him. He can play the blues and he can also go places no one's ever been before."

Of Bobby's own compositions. Til Then is the most haunting and memorable. Originally titled Moomba, Bobby recorded the tune again ten years later on his Knucklebean album. Around that time, I sent him a copy of this session. He loved the performance and expressed disappointment that this session was never released. Reminded of his own compositions, he rerecorded Til Then.

Where Til Then has a samba flavor, Subtle Neptune is more overtly a samba throughout. My Joy is an unusually baroque Hutcherson composition in 12/8. Hancock gets off his strongest solo on the date, as does the amazing Stinson.

In 1968, Bobby Hutcherson formed a quintet with Harold Land, which recorded under Land's name for Cadet and Mainstream and under Bobby's name for Blue Note. Throughout 1968 and 1969, Joe Chambers was an integral part of the band, playing and often contributing tunes. Thereafter, the quintet was based totally on the West Coast where the rhythm section changed frequently.

Oblique is a definitive and typically broad based statement of Bobby's creative period in New York City and a sterling representation of Blue Note's final 'classic' year before Alfred Lion departed, and the corporate mentality eroded the quality of the label. Oblique is also a welcome addition to the scanty discography of one Albert Stinson, bass virtuoso and victim of the jazz life.

—Michael Cuscuna

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT OBLIQUE

If you were a young vibraphone player in the 1960s, placing yourself in ensembles completed by piano, bass, and drums had to be a daunting proposition. Milt Jackson, the dominant voice on your instrument, was into his second successful decade with the Modern Jazz Quartet; and when Jackson was not weaving his lines amidst the compositional and comping schemes of MJQ musical director John Lewis, he was wailing more informally on albums that often employed the identical quartet configuration. If you hoped to take the vibes in new directions, and to gain notice for your own voice, better to find other settings for your music.

The careers of the two vibes giants who emerged in the '60s bear this out, albeit in different ways. Both Bobby Hutcherson (most prominently with Jackie McLean and Eric Dolphy) and Gary Burton (with Stan Getz) earned some of their earliest acclaim as sidemen in bands where they served in place of a pianist. Burton maintained this approach on most of his own recordings, frequently employing guitar as a second chording instrument before settling on the format in his pioneering 1967 fusion quartet with Larry Coryell. Hutcherson was hardly as keyboard-averse, working frequently with pianists and even the occasional organist in the recording studio. When his own Blue Note sessions were held, however, Hutcherson was also inclined to avoid the setting that Jackson, Lewis, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay seemed to have patented.

Fortunately, there were exceptions. Hutcherson possessed both his own voice and his own way of relating to a keyboard partner; and his Blue Note affiliation ensured contact with pianists who could explore ideas outside the MJQ's realm. As Hutcherson's discography grew, he formed special bonds with three pianists in particular: Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, and Herbie Hancock. All three were featured on Hutcherson albums, and the first two thought enough of the vibist to feature him in quartet sessions of their own (hear Hill's Judgment! and Time for Tyner, both of which are also appearing among the RVG Editions series). Hutcherson only made two quartet dates under his own name for Blue Note, however, and in both instances his pianist of choice was Hancock. The pair had first recorded together in 1962, as part of the Al Grey—Billy Mitchell sextet on the Argo/Cadet disc Snap Your Fingers, and Hancock had also made significant contributions to Hutcherson's 1965 album Components. Nearly two decades later, they would each make significant contributions as both actors and players in Bertrand Tavernier's film 'Round Midnight. But the clearest indication of their affinity came in 1966, on Hutcherson's quartet disc Happenings.

This album is something of a sequel to Happenings, and while it carries less of a straight-ahead feeling as Michael Cuscuna points out, it mirrors the earlier album by featuring a Hancock composition as its most accessible track. There are clear structural connections between "Theme from Blow Up" and "Maiden Voyage," which had appeared on Happenings in the first of what would become countless cover versions, and it is quite possible that Hancock's theme from the popular Michelangelo Antonioni film would have enjoyed similar cachet if this album had been released at the time it was recorded. Hutcherson continued to perform "Theme from Blow Up" in the quintet he co-led with Harold Land (they play it on a recording made at the 1969 Juan-les-Pins festival), and drummer Joe Chambers included the piece on his 1976 album New World.

With the exception of "'Til Then," the rest of the compositions heard here did not appear again on record. In the case of Chambers's contributions, this may simply be an indication of how challenging and truly oblique they are. Chambers was Hutcherson's most constant partner during the vibist's Blue Note years, as both drummer and composer, and their relationship stretched well into the period of the Hutcherson—Land quintet. A proper evaluation of the music Chambers contributed to Hutcherson's albums is long overdue. Bassist Albert Stinson also deserves some posthumous respect for his excellent work here and on the few other recordings he made prior to his tragic death. He and Hutcherson were members of John Handy's quintet at the time of the present recording, and can be heard on the saxophonist's Columbia album New View, recorded a month after the present music.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2005

75th Anniversary CD Reissue Notes

Among the unissued sessions that I discovered in the Blue Note vaults, this was one of maybe 10 albums that I was shocked that they were left behind because they are so great. "Oblique" was Bobby's sixth session for the label, but like his first date "The Kicker" it was not released at the time of recording. "Oblique" Was Bobby's second quartet and it paralleled his first ("Happenings") in many ways. Herbie Hancock and Joe Chambers were the pianist and drummer respectively. Each album carried a nodal Herbie Hancock composition (here it is "The Theme From Blow Up" and each featured material that ranged from simplistic beauty('Til Then" and "My Joy") to dark and challenging ("Oblique" and Bi-Sectional").

These are musicians that communicate and operate at a very high level and that informs all of the music made here. The newcomer in the group is Albert Stinson, the stunning bass virtuoso who first came to prominence with Chico Hamilton in 1962. At the time, Stinson and Bobby were members of John Handy's quintet. In less than two years, this amazing musician would be dead, making this extraordinary session an important part of his legacy.

- MICHAEL CUSCUNA

LT-1058

Lee Morgan - Tom Cat

Released - 1980

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 11, 1964
Lee Morgan, trumpet; Curtis Fuller, trombone; Jackie McLean, alto sax; McCoy Tyner, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.7 Exotique
tk.8 Tom Cat
tk.14 Twice Around
tk.29 Rigormortis (aka Riggormortes)
tk.35 Twilight Mist

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Tom Cat	Morgan	August 11 1964
Exotique	Morgan	August 11 1964
Side Two
Twice Around	Morgan	August 11 1964
Twilight Mist	Tyner	August 11 1964
Riggarmortes	Morgan	August 11 1964

Liner Notes

LEE MORGAN

At the age of 18, Lee Morgan was playing in Dizzy Gillespie's big band and making his first album as a leader for Blue Note. In the summer of 1961, having just turned 23 and with 7 albums on Blue Note and 2 on Vee Jay to his credit and after a fruitful three and one half year stint with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, this renowned trumpet star slipped quietly from the limelight to his hometown Philadelphia to sort out his personal problems, the most significant of which was heroin addiction.

At the end of 1963, Lee was ready to re-enter the scene and pick up where he had left off. In November, he appeared on Grachan Moncur's Evolution and Hank Mobley's No Room For Squares. In December, he recorded a new album for Blue Note (The Sidewinder) and again in February, 1964 a second session (Search For The New Land). While he was waiting for these albums to be issued, he sat idly in a resident hotel in New York. In April and May, the Messengers recorded one of their finest albums Indestructable with Lee back in the band. 1964 was a year of many personnel changes for the Blakey organization; Lee and Curtis Fuller remained the only constants.

On August 11, Lee went back into the studio to record this session Tom Cat, issued here for the first time. Blakey, who had stopped doing sideman recording dates in early 1962, was willing to do this one for Lee.

Meanwhile, The Sidewinder was released. As the story goes, neither Lee nor Alfred Lion of Blue Note plotted musically for a smash. In fact, the company issued only about 4000 copies upon release. Needless to say, they ran out of stock in three or four days. And The Sidewinder became a runaway smash, making the pop 100 charts. It was heard on juke boxes, AM stations, as a theme for television shows and even on a Chrysler automobile ad on TV. Jazz had its first crossover hit.

The result was a considerable amount of rethinking by Blue Note and a certain amount of pressure applied to them from their distributors to come up with more of the same. Search For The New Land and Tom Cat were shelved temporarily, while Morgan returned to the studio to try for a follow-up, which was Andrew Hill's The Rumproller. Search was eventually issued a few years later, but Tom Cat was somehow forgotten.

Yet this is one of Lee's finest sessions with a superb cast and some of the man's best writing. From his earliest to his last days, the trumpeter preferred to record with sextets of varying instrumentation rather than the standard quintet setting of trumpet, tenor sax, piano, bass and drums. And in several cases, such as Tom Cat, Search For The New Land, Cornbread and The Procrastinator, it brought out the best in his compositional talents.

The assembled cast for this album is not only spectacular, but they are all people with whom Lee had played and with whom he shared history and empathy.

Curtis Fuller, of course, had worked with and was at the time working along side Lee in the Jazz Messengers. But during the mid and late fifties, their collaborations were spread throughout the Blue Note vaults and included Clifford Jordan's first album, John Coltrane's Blue Train, Jimmy Smith's The Sermon, House Party and Confirmation, Lee's City Lights and Fuller's Sliding Easy.

Jackie McLean, prior to this date, had appeared on Lee's 1960 album Leeway, and they worked together on Grachan Moncur's Evolution. But from this date on, they would record together with increasing frequency. Under McLean's leader ship came Consequence and Jacknife, both of which remained unissued until the late seventies. And under Lee's name came Cornbread, Charisma, The Sixth Sense and the soon to be released Infinity. As Larry Kart wrote in his notes for Consequence, "Also worth mentioning is the way Lee and Jackie play the heads together. Such ensemble niceties weren't granted too much attention at the time because the music was felt to be essentially soloistic, but I can think of few things in jazz more fascinating than the way McLean and Morgan perfectly blend their sounds (each so totally individual) to create a third sound that has the emotional richness of both and something more besides."

Bassist Bob Cranshaw, who would later become a Blue Note regular and appear on many dates with Morgan, was present on Moncur's Evolution and The Sidewinder. At that time, Lee told Leonard Feather, "Bob's one of the best all-around bass players on the scene today. He's got a great sound, and no matter what kind of music you bring in, he can see what's happening and read it. And he can walk, and he can solo."

McCoy Tyner, a fellow Philadelphian and only six months younger than Lee, did not enter the professional jazz ranks until late 1959 when he became a member of the Benny Golson-Art Farmer Jazztet, which also included Curtis Fuller. In fact, it was on one of Fuller's Savoy dates that McCoy made his recording debut. His first recorded encounter with Lee took place four months prior to this date on Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer.

As for Art Blakey, it is hard to think of one musician without thinking of the other. To this day, Lee Morgan is still the one that remains closest to Blakey's heart. The drummer said recently, "I always loved him. And over the years, conversations would get back to me where Lee had stuck up for me. You couldn't say anything bad about me around Lee. During that year (1964), he was really getting himself back together. It was beautiful to watch. On our Japanese tour, he only spent one week's salary. All that money coming in from The Sidewinder...we held that for him." Undoubtedly, the love between these two men, especially at this time, translated itself to the music.

With the exception of Tyner's lovely, triple meter ballad Twilight Mist, which showcases McCoy and Lee, all of the compositions are by Lee. And each is strikingly unique in flavor and musical construction. Throughout, these six men play off each other beautifully.

Around 1960, Lee Morgan told Nat Hentoff, "I don't think I have a completely original style, though I have an identity. An identity is when someone who knows jazz can say 'that's Lee Morgan playing', but my basic style is composed of a strong Fats Navarro/Clifford Brown influence, and Miles and Dizzy, and then again a Bud and Bird thing. I think a definite style comes with living and experience and travelling until you play what you are...you play yourself through the horn."

In both his writing and his playing, Morgan's identity did become a definite style, His cockiness and, most of all, his spontaneity and soulfulness came resounding through everything that he produced. In the February 19, 1970 issue of Downbeat magazine, he was quoted as saying, "The first rock and roll group I was in — me and Archie Shepp and Reggie Workman for a while too — was Carl Holmes and the Jolly Rompers...Music is coming so close together...I've been through all that, besides jazz and rock and roll...I don't like labels. If you can play, you can play with everybody. Look at Coleman Hawkins, Joe Henderson. Whatever you prefer, you'll find sufficient quantities of talented musicians who prefer the same. But you should never limit your mind. With the new thing coming in, I'm one of those who prefer to swing a lot. But I've experimented with free forms, like on Grachan Moncur's Evolution and Andrew Hill's Grass Roots — playing without the rhythm, against the rhythm, disregarding it — the whole freedom thing. The avant garde organist who plays with Tony Williams, Larry Young: I made an album with him (Mother Ship). And the next week one with Lonnie Smith (Think), a whole different thing... There are no natural barriers. It's all music. It's either hip or it ain't."

—Michael Cuscuna

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT TOM CAT

Like many of Blue Note's artists in the 1950s and '60s, Lee Morgan produced the majority of his albums at the helm of bands that had no existence beyond the confines of Rudy Van Gelder's studio. They rarely contained total strangers, as the active recording scene of the period and the criss-crossing bandstand affiliations these musicians enjoyed in clubs guaranteed more than a modicum of familiarity. Still, the specific musicians recruited for this and many other albums had not developed a history as a unit, which does count for something in music where the input of each band member can alter the spontaneous balance. Tom Cat is an example of an album on which success flowed from the way the players related specifically to two of the participants. Michael Cuscuna's original liner notes stress the empathy each sideman had developed over time with the date's leader, Lee Morgan, but their varying relationship to drummer Art Blakey is equally pivotal.

The three horn players are all Jazz Messenger alumni, with tenures covering an almost unbroken stretch of Messengers history from late-1956, when McLean came on board, through the early part of 1965, when Morgan made his final exit from the band. As important as the comfort that Morgan, McLean, and Curtis Fuller feel with each other is to the success of the music, their common ability to luxuriate in Blakey's deep rhythmic pocket, and his complementary knowledge of which buttons to push as each man steps forward to solo, all help lift the music to the realm of the exceptional.

Blakey's history with his rhythm section mates was hardly as extensive, as neither Bob Cranshaw nor McCoy Tyner had put in any time as Messengers to this point. (Tyner would serve briefly in the years after he left John Coltrane's quartet, though no documentation of his tenure has appeared to-date.) Tom Cat is actually only the second of two Blakey/Tyner encounters on record. The drummer and pianist first met a year before the present session on Blakey's quartet album, A Jazz Message (Impulse!). They did not mesh with any kind of consistency on that effort, the result perhaps of music that never really settled between the poles of the straight-up bebop that the session's horn soloist Sonny Stitt preferred and the more expansive and contemporary flow of the music Tyner and session bassist Art Davis had made when the pair worked together in John Coltrane's group. When the present music was made, there was no such need to search for a comfort zone. Blakey and Morgan were already locked into the same swinging wavelength, while Tyner was more than familiar with Morgan's approach from their teenage years as prodigies in Philadelphia. Everyone seems to have fit together immediately and effectively, with Cranshaw's big, steady beat no doubt also deserving some of the credit for the impeccable comfort level throughout.

Sextet projects were the occasions for much of Morgan's best writing, as Cuscuna notes, and his three contributions here only confirm the point while employing ideas that were among Morgan's favorites. The use of two distinct feelings on the title track's solo choruses, for one instance, was reprised in more incendiary fashion a year later when Morgan cut "Our Man Higgins" on his Cornbread album, and the way "Twice Around" employs different tempos to create distinct moods on the same melodic material anticipates "The Procrastinator" by three years. A similar effect is obtained when the meditative opening of "Exotique" shifts to a hypnotic 6/8 tempo, recalling "Search for the New Land" from earlier in 1964. Morgan is not simply recycling effects, but rather applying then in conjunction with fresh melodic and harmonic material that both inspires the soloists and sustains the listeners' interest.

Recording more sessions than could practically be released at the time was part of Alfred Lion's overall approach at Blue Note. Still, it is rather shocking that a collection as strong as Tom Cat took 16 years to surface, especially when it contained something as obviously funky and listener-friendly as the title track. The lack of a cut with both soul and the danceable groove of "The Sidewinder" is the only imaginable explanation for why such winning music was shelved. Its belated appearance provided one more bit of evidence that the resurgent Lee Morgan of the mid-sixties was about much more than simply making hits.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2005

Notes for the 2012 CD Edition

"Tom Cat" and "The Procrastinator" remain my favorites among the many Lee Morgan sessions that I was able to release years later. This is just an absolutely terrific band. The unusual instrumentation of the front line (trumpet, trombone, alto sax) give these wonderful compositions an extra punch. This was Art Blakey's final recording session as a sideman (undoubtedly a favor for Lee who was making his comeback in Blakey's band at the time). It's a shame that Blakey and McCoy Tyner didn't get to record together very often. They fit together beautifully.  

The reason "Tom Cat" was shelved and "Search For The New Land" (4169), also recorded in 1964, was delayed a few years was because "The Sidewinder" (4157) had become such a surprise hit. Blue Note brought Lee back into the studio to record "The Rumproller" (4199) which was a follow-up to "The  Sidewinder" in the same style.  
- Michael Cuscuna 

LT-1054

Jimmy Smith - Cool Blues

Released - 1980

Recording and Session Information

"Smalls Paradise", Harlem, NY, 1st set, April 7, 1958
Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Tina Brooks, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.5 Cool Blues

"Smalls Paradise", Harlem, NY, 3rd set, April 7, 1958
Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Tina Brooks, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar; Art Blakey, drums.

tk.11 A Night In Tunisia
tk.12 Dark Eyes
tk.13 Groovin' At Small's

Session Photos

Photos: © Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images 

https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Groovin' At Small's	Babs Gonzales	April 7 1958
Dark Eyes	Traditional - Arr. Smith	April 7 1958
Side Two
Cool Blues	Charlie Parker	April 7 1958
A Night In Tunisia	Dizzy Gillespie	April 7 1958

Liner Notes

Jimmy Smith‘s story is an unusual one because he single-handedly introduced an instrument into the modern jazz mainstream and created a sound and a style to go with it. What is most unusual is that he did not even approach the instrument until he was 28 years old, and he did not play a gig under his own leadership or record an album of his own until he was 29.

Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on December 8, 1926, Jimmy studied piano from his father and later attended the Orenstein School of Music in Philadelphia for three years, studying piano, bass, harmony and theory. A succession of R & B gigs followed until 1955 when Smith began considering the possibilities of the electric organ, having been inspired by the work of Wild Bill Davis.

He made a deal with a Philadelphia organ dealer to play on one of their organs at one dollar an hour until he could afford to buy his own. When he did buy his own instrument, he housed it in a warehouse near his residence and worked out conscientiously everyday, systematically teaching himself the instrument's capabilities and possibilities.

After a year of sweat, he emerged with a style all his own and a facility that could be described as nothing less than complete virtuousity. He formed his first trio with guitarist Thornel Schwartz and drummer Flay Perry. Word of this phenomenon came up to New York via musicians such as pianist Freddie Redd who happened to catch Smith while travelling through Philly. A few initial gigs in New York, uptown at Small’s Paradise and downtown at Cafe Bohemia, and this man playing organ was literally the talk of the town. Alfred Lion of Blue Note was quick to check him out and even quicker to sign him. And from his first sessions, which included The Preacher and The Champ, Jimmy Smith’s records were commercial and artistic hits.

Smith recorded for Blue Note from February, 1956 to February, 1963. And the label put him in a variety of settings during those seven years. He recorded with his working trio, with singers Babs Gonsalves and Bill Henderson, with rhythm section guests Kenny Burrell, Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones, in quartet setting with Lou Donaldson or Stanley Turrentine and with all star sextets that included Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Blue Mitchell, Jackie McLean, Ike Quebec and many others.

He seemed to shine most on live recordings and dates with an assemblage of challenging hornmen. In this album, we have both. Small’s Paradise, the legendary Harlem club at 135 Street and 7th Avenue, has contributed to the history of jazz since the twenties. It has special significance to Smith and his relationship with Blue Note. The late Frank Wolff, Alfred Lion’s partner in Blue Note, wrote, “I first heard Jimmy at Small’s Paradise in January of 1956. it was his first gig in New York - one week. He was a stunning sight. A man in convulsions, face contorted, crouched over in apparent agony, the fingers flying, his foot dancing over the pedals. The air was filled with waves of sound that I had never heard before. The noise was shattering. A few people sat around, puzzled, but impressed. He came off the stand, smiling, the sweat dripping all over him. “So what do you think?" “Yeah,” I said. That’s all I could say. Alfred Lion had already made up his mind.

He had revamped the jazz organ and come up with a new sound. The sound has now been adopted by almost all jazz organists, but his style remains his own. Right from the start of his recording career, he was in full command of this very complex and demanding machine, the Hammond organ. Apart from his incredible technique, he had fire, feeling, beat, humor - all adding up to a highly personal style. Everything was there, everything was right when he did The Champ and through the years so many other masterpieces. Jimmy Smith is a great artist - and a beautiful guy."

After some twenty months of prolific recording for Blue Note and some eleven albums on the market, Smith and his regular trio of Eddie McFadden on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums and producer Alfred Lion and engineer Rudy Van Gelder moved into Small's Paradise for the night of November 15, 1957 and recorded enough material for three albums, although only two were issued. They were Groovin' At Small's Paradise, volumes 1 8. 2 (BLP 1585/1586).

Again on April 7, 1958, Smith's trio was back at Small's with Blue Note taping. Lou Donaldson, already a frequent fourth for Smith on certain gigs and record dates, was added for the evening. And special guests Art Blakey and Tina Brooks insured a very special night. The material from this session was never issued. The reason was probably not the music, which was excellent, but the fact that it was recorded only in mono at a time when stereo was growing rapidly.

The regular quartet played the first two sets, but the first set ended with Charlie Parker’s Cool Blues with Tina Brooks added to the band. The third set was comprised of three tunes, A Night In Tunisia, Dark Eyes and Babs Gonzales’ Groovin' At Small's with Art Blakey replacing Bailey.

Blakey, who had already guested on several Smith dates by this time, was assurance of instant fire and inspiration. And he works his usual magic here, controlling the dynamics and the spirit of the music from the drums, giving it life and power and gut beauty.

Tina Brooks, the late tenor saxophonist, was a terribly underrated and very brilliant improviser. The subtlety of his tone and intricacy of his ideas. Six weeks prior to this date, he recorded with Smith on a marathon sextet jam session that produced The Sermon, House Party and Confirmation. Almost his entire legacy would be documented by Blue Note. He played on Kenny Burrell’s Blue Lights and Five Spot albums, on Freddie Hubbard’s first record, two Freddie Redd dates, a Jackie McLean sextet session and on four album dates that he led, only one of which was issued in his lifetime. By the end of the sixties, Brooks had stopped playing out of general despair, and by the end of 1974, he had died of general dissipation. His death seems to us as tragic as his life must have seemed to him.

But this night at Small’s was one of relaxed cooking, a get together of peers who speak the same language and speak it better than most. The audience was small and knowing, and the atmosphere was informal on this Monday night. Babs Gonzales, who functioned as emcee that night, or Alfred Lion might consult the band between tunes. And if a tune got off to a wrong start, they’d stop and start again. But once they were rolling, they were unstoppable. And the intimacy of the evening contributed to the spontaneity.

On Cool Blues, you can hear Lou signalling Jimmy that he had played his last chorus and that the organist should take over by playing an insistent quote from Now’s The Time as if to say, “wake up, take it!” And on A Night In Tunisia, Blakey turns the beat around at one point, and Lou hesitates in his confusion. But Smith stampedes on through until the groove is reestablished and Donaldson continues his flight. These moments of human imperfection add to the feeling of being in on something at the point of creation. That is part of the magic of a jam session in capable hands.

Jimmy Smith with guests Art Blakey, Lou Donaldson and Tina Brooks playing live at Small’s Paradise with Rudy Van Gelder's tape machines running: an unbeatable chemistry and a night in which we can all share in perpetuity.

by Michael Cuscuna

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

JIMMY SMITH COOL BLUES

This is the first volume in the Rudy Van Gelder series representing what have been called the "lost" Blue Note sessions. Like a number of the label's projects from the '50s and '60s, it remained unreleased for decades until Michael Cuscuna and the late Charlie Lourie found outlets for belated releases on Blue Note collectors' series in various countries, under their own Mosaic imprint, and as part of the second-generation resurgence of the label that began in 1985. In terms of overall spirit and the glorious pleasure it conveys, no finer choice could have been made from among this often fascinating body of music. Cool Blues beautifully complements other, more familiar Smith sessions of the period, specifically the two studio jam collections House Party and The Sermon and the volumes by Smith's working trio of McFadden and Bailey that were taped at the same legendary Harlem location five months earlier. The first four tracks here initially appeared on a 1980 LP, and the full program was included on the original 1990 CD reissue.

The contribution of Tina Brooks alone makes the collection memorable. Brooks is one of jazz's might-have-beens; he lived a starkly attenuated life, born in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1932, dead of what has been described as general dissipation in 1974, unrecognized and basically undocumented through most of his career as a tenor saxophonist. Almost all of what we now know of Brooks is contained on Blue Note sessions recorded between 1958 and 1961, and a large portion of that material (including all but one of his own dates as a leader) did not surface in his lifetime. Among the sessions that did appear early on, before his own 1960 LP True Blue, were Brooks's label debut at the second House Party/Sermon session from February 1958 and Kenny Burrell's live On View At The Five Spot Cafe from August 1959 (the latter also featuring Art Blakey as special guest). Clearly, Brooks was comfortable working in an organ combo and communicated with quiet fervor in front of a live audience. These rare extended examples of his tenor sax work are among the best of his sadly abbreviated discography.

Blakey and Lou Donaldson are far more familiar figures, but their presence resonates as well. They were veterans of a couple of important Smith projects, not to mention the historic 1954 Birdland recordings under Blakey's leadership that sent Van Gelder on location for Blue Note in the first of the label's numerous in-person efforts. Coincidentally, Blakey's Birdland visit also produced versions of "Once In A While" (with Clifford Brown as the featured soloist on that earlier occasion) and "A Night In Tunisia." At Small's, Donaldson took charge on "Once" and the set's other ballad, "What's New?," and also soared at the brisker tempos of the other tracks. His fluency has rarely been on better display than during his "Cool Blues" solo, where Bailey is the drummer and sets a groove more self-effacing yet no less effective than Blakey's on the surrounding performances.

As demonstrative as the music gets, and as technically dazzling as Smith's solos become at points, the organist is a true team player throughout, giving everyone else plenty of room and ensuring that his guests feel comfortable in the process. Yet a point Michael Cuscuna makes in the original liner notes bears repeating. Smith had only been playing the Hammond B-3 organ professionally for three years, and his inventions, heard at their most torrential on "Dark Eyes" and the title track, are the sound of an innovator still immersing himself in the possibilities of his instrument. As far as he and others have taken the keyboard in subsequent decades, it can safely be said that no one has surpassed the audacious outpouring of these particular flights.

In addition to their monaural format and the abundance of other Smith albums from the period, the length of the tracks with Brooks and Blakey no doubt also contributed to keeping this material in the vaults for nearly a quarter-century. The compact disc format is more accommodating to such performances, and this CD reissue even includes a bit of newly-released commentary from Babs Gonzales, who besides holding the honor of having been Blue Note's first bebop artist (in '1947) was also Smith's manager when the organist made his initial splash in New York. Babs's expoobident presence was always part of the ambience on earlier issues, and his exhortations to the band sound fit right into the atmosphere of serious fun that prevails throughout.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2001