Thad Jones / Mel Lewis
Released - 1975
Recording and Session Information
NYC, May 11, 1966
Thad Jones, cornet, flugelhorn, composer, leader; Mel Lewis, drums; Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Mean What You Say
NYC, September 30, 1966
Thad Jones, cornet, flugelhorn, composer, leader; Mel Lewis, drums; Joe Williams, vocals; Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Get Out Of My Life, Woman
Come Sunday
Woman's Got Soul
"Village Vanguard", NYC, June 1, 1967
Thad Jones, cornet, flugelhorn, composer, leader; Mel Lewis, drums; Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Little Pixie No. 2
NYC, July 18, 1968
Thad Jones, cornet, flugelhorn, composer, leader; Mel Lewis, drums; Ruth Brown, vocals; Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Fine Brown Frame
You Won't Let Me Go
Be Anything But Be Mine
"Village Vanguard", NYC, October 17, 1968
Thad Jones, cornet, flugelhorn, composer, leader; Mel Lewis, drums; Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Mornin' Reverend
NYC, July 25, 1969
Thad Jones, cornet, flugelhorn, composer, leader; Mel Lewis, drums; Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Jive Samba
The Big Dipper
Central Park North
The Groove Merchant
A&R Studios, NYC, January 21, 1970
Danny Moore, Al Porcino, Marvin Stamm, Snooky Young, trumpet; Thad Jones, flugelhorn, arranger; Eddie Bert, Jimmy Knepper, Benny Powell, trombone; Cliff Heather, bass trombone; Jerry Dodgion, Jerome Richardson, alto sax; Eddie Daniels, Billy Harper, tenor sax; Richie Kamuca, baritone sax; Roland Hanna, piano, electric piano; Richard Davis, bass, electric bass; Mel Lewis, drums.
5856 (tk.11) Tiptoe
A&R Studios, NYC, May 25, 1970
Danny Moore, Al Porcino, Marvin Stamm, Snooky Young, trumpet; Thad Jones, flugelhorn, arranger; Eddie Bert, Jimmy Knepper, Benny Powell, trombone; Cliff Heather, bass trombone; Howard Johnson, tuba; Jerry Dodgion, Jerome Richardson, alto sax; Eddie Daniels, Billy Harper, tenor sax; Pepper Adams, baritone sax; Roland Hanna, piano, electric piano; Richard Davis, bass, electric bass; Mel Lewis, drums.
5857 (tk.1) A Child Is Born
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| Jive Samba | Nat Adderley | July 25 1969 |
| Mean What You Say | Thad Jones | May 11 1966 |
| A Child Is Born | Thad Jones | May 25 1970 |
| Side Two | ||
| Tiptoe | Thad Jones | January 21 1970 |
| Get Out Of My Life | Allen Toussaint | September 30 1966 |
| Come Sunday | Duke Ellington | September 30 1966 |
| Woman's Got Soul | Curtis Mayfield | September 30 1966 |
| Groove Merchant | Jerome Richardson | July 25 1969 |
| Side Three | ||
| Big Dipper | Thad Jones | July 25 1969 |
| Little Pixie #2 | Thad Jones | June 1 1967 |
| Central Park North | Thad Jones | July 25 1969 |
| Side Four | ||
| Mornin' Reverend | Thad Jones | October 17 1968 |
| You Won't Let Me Go | B. Allen-W. B. Johnson | July 18 1968 |
| Fine Brown Frame | G. Cartiero-J. M. Williams | July 18 1968 |
| Be Anything (But Be Mine) | I. Gordon | July 18 1968 |
Liner Notes
THAD JONES & MEL LEWIS ORCHESTRA
This double-decker package should offer a needed reminder that all that verbiage about big bands coming back is just so much expendable small talk.
Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and their associates came back in 1974 from their second successful exploration of Japan. The year before that, they came back from a trip to Blighty during which, had it been in his power, Ronnie Scott surely would have knighted them for their performance at his club. A year prior to this triumph, they came back from a five week tour of the Soviet Union under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.
Perhaps you are beginning to get the picture. This band, perhaps more than any other on the contemporary scene, is always "coming back," and always infused with a spirit instilled by the series of warm welcomes accorded by the world-wide jazz fraternity.
The orchestra is unique in several respects. Despite its numerous poll victories as the No. 1 big band in jazz, Jones/Lewis spent the first few years of its career (which began officially in 1965) basically as a collection of New York studio musicians who wanted to have an outlet for emotions more genuine than they could express in the day to day life of pop recording dates, television assignments and the various other chores that enabled them to make a living. This end was achieved mainly through Monday night sessions at the Village Vanguard, which in fact has remained their pied-a-terre; however, little by little their schedule had expanded. The first recordings, combined with word of mouth and the heavy roster of names in the personnel, created a ready-made audience for them in an ever-widening area. Typically, viewers in the Leningrad and Tallinn areas were treated to a 45-minute Soviet-made Jones/ Lewis TV special (and in an irony characteristic of the prophet-without-honor nature of jazz, it was not until December of 1974 that they made their first U.S. television appearance). Similarly, during the last Japanese tour, when the master of ceremonies attempted to introduce each member, he found that the fans out front were calling out the names ahead of him. Again, one finds that such men as Roland Hanna, Jimmy Knepper and George Mraz may be more familiar to a crowd in Tokyo than in Detroit or Cleveland. (How do you say aficionados in Japanese?)
What is the secret of Jones/Lewis' musical and popular acceptance? Why, at a time when there still seems to be such an overwhelmingly heavy accent on small combos, whining guitars, synthesizers and so many other elements directly antithetical to what they represent, do they still move from one brilliant accomplishment to another?
Much of the answer must lie in the sheer quality of the music and the spirit with which it is played. The textural and harmonic subtleties of Thad's compositions and arrangements, the shifts of mood, tempo, color and voicings within each chart, often make a virtual concerto out of one or two basic themes. Then too there is the range of improvisational talent: each man is a virtuoso in his own right, something we have not heard since Ellington's palmiest days.
How rare it is also to find an ensemble in which talent is the only prerequisite, age and race being inconsequential. As he pointed out a while back, at one point, Jon Faddis, 20, Quentin Jackson, 65, and Cliff Heather, 70, were all members of the brass section. "Nothing matters," said Thad, "except that we all have the same attitude about music." The band is unique in its dual captaincy. Lewis, the rock-steady, Buffalo-born drummer, and Jones of Pontiac, Mich. met by chance 20 years ago when Lewis was working with Stan Kenton and Jones was playing alternate sets on the opposite bandstand with Count Basie. The friendship that developed was an off-and-on affair until, in the early 1960s, both men settled in New York. For a while they were colleagues in Gerry Mulligan's orchestra, whose membership included several others who in due course would align themselves with Jones/ Lewis for the first Vanguard gig.
The recorded annals of this nonpariel assemblage can be traced in these four sides, whose tracks represent various stages of its development, reflecting the occasional changes in personnel. (By contemporary standards the turnover has been quite slow, and occasioned as often as not by the departure over the years of several members who took up residence in California. It is impossible to conceive of anybody's leaving this band through dissatisfaction with the job or the music.)
Jive Samba, recorded in 1969, is Thad's arrangement of the Nat Adderley funk-in-cheek line. Note the elegant use of the full brass span, from Snooky Young's searing lead trumpet to Cliff Heather's pedal point bass trombone. The muted trumpet solos are by Richard Williams and Danny Moore; then Williams has an open solo, some of it with typical Thad Jones scoring to support him with unison saxes and harmonized brass. Jerome Richardson is heard, first on piccolo and later on alto. The pinpoint precision of the band, sectionally or collectively, is magnificently represented.
Mean What You Say stems from an earlier date, in 1966. Hank Jones shows the way, with guitarist Sam Herman chugging discreetly in the rhythm section along with Mel's steady pulse and the stately bass of Richard Davis. At one point fluegelhorn and trumpet carry the melody, then reeds backed by trombones have the spotlight. Solos are by Thad on fluegelhorn and Eddie Daniels in some busy tenor work. Mel Lewis' drums break leads into an ensemble with a two-beat feel and another illustration of the trombone section's unified power.
A Child Is Born, recorded in 1970, is ah exquisite waltz worthy of the Duke himself, one that has become Thad's best known composition. Roland Hanna's serene introduction of the theme leads to a gentle fluegel statement by Thad, beautiful work by flutes and muted brass, and an overall feeling for dynamics that has been one of the band's great strengths. As Mel said, "I don't know anyone who can play a ballad prettier than Thad can." To this I would add: "or write one."
Tiptoe, dating from the same year and with almost the identical personnel, has a scattershot, stealthy disposition of notes in its very typically Jonesish melody, deployed by the reeds. Notice the comping of Hanna during the first part of Jerry Dodgion's solo, the incomparable rapport shown by Lewis and Davis, and Marvin Stamm's incandescent lead trumpet during a sensational example of the band's teamwork.
The next three tracks derived from the memorable 1966 collaboration of the band and Joe Williams, whose maturity and strong timbre are to jazz singing what the Jones/ Lewis sound is to big bands — i.e, the ne plus ultra. Get Out Of My Life Woman has some soprano noodling by Jerome and humorous trumpet work by Jimmy Nottingham. In Ellington's gorgeous Come Sunday (originally a movement from the Black, Brown & Beige suite) Hanna backs and fills, reeds and muted brass tastefully woven in, and Pepper Adams' baritone enters during the last eight bars of the chorus. Nottingham's obligato and Dodgion's alto help to consolidate the swinging mood of Woman's Got Soul.
Groove Merchant is the product of a 1969 session, Thad's arrangement of a Jerome Richardson piece, The composer leads the sax section on soprano in this delightful 16-bar funk-soul opus that suggests a big band extension of the groove Horace Silver set in The Preacher, The hint of shuffle rhythm is just enough to lend variety without ever becoming ponderous.
Little Pixie is a virtual showcase for the entire reed family: Joe Farrell on tenor, Dodgion on alto, Eddie Daniels on clarinet, Pepper on baritone, Jerome on soprano. Again, endless subtleties on the part of Thad Jones in the various backings for his soloists. It's a sort of cross between Ellington's Cotton Tail groove (updated by three decades) and Thad's own Tiptoe.
Mornin' Reverend was recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 1968. Eddie Daniels' tenor has a solo monopoly here, but the band roars in its impressions of down-home rootsy gospel.
The balance of Side Four was taped at a 1968 get-together with Ruth Brown, a lady from Portsmouth, Va. who became an R&B hitmaker in the early 1950s and remains, by jazz or any other standards, one of the most potent interpreters ever to sink her soul into a blues or ballad. Two of her numbers originated in the Buddy Johnson band of Savoy Ballroom fame: You Won't Let Me Go (1940) and Fine Brown Frame (1944), though the latter gained additional circulation through Nellie Lutcher's 1948 treatment, to which Ruth's interpretation makes a detectable bow. Jerome is the soprano man on Let Me Go, a Bob Brookmeyer arrangement, Be Anything is a 1952 pop song of which Eddy Howard made the best selling record, Ruth's singular timbre has a warmth that is admirably cushioned by the sounds of the orchestra. As Ira Gitler observed, "Ruth Brown was into soul long before they were calling it by that name," That's Jerry Dodgion on alto.
Big Dipper and Central Park North, from the same session, are both Thad Jones originals, the former featuring Nottingham and Daniels, the latter Thad's fluegel (note Barry Galbraith and Sam Brown on rhythm guitars), Jerome on soprano (how amazingly proficient is this superman on every horn he blows!), and some particularly potent work by Mel during this exciting, adventurous boogaloo-based piece, Thad's sense of color is everywhere apparent: backing Jerome's second chorus, for example, you hear two sopranos, clarinet, bass clarinet and brass.
To sum up the accomplishments of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis phenomenon as succinctly as possible, let me put it this way: In 1965, at the Village Vanguard, a child was born. In almost a decade that has elapsed, his cries have been heard and received with elation wherever true jazz has been heard. Never has a youngster been more prodigious in his ability to communicate in the universal language of music. I would like to believe that the recordings of this orchestra will find their way into every library of music; every college music department; every connoisseur's collection, whether he grew up on Basie or Brubeck or the Beatles or Herbie Hancock. There just aren't any greater sounds being created by any musical organization.
Am I overextending myself in my praise? Listening to these four sides you will be convinced that if anything the case is being understated.
LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties, Horizon Press)
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