LP-738

The Art Farmer Quartet - Perception

Released 1964

Recording and Session Information

Art Farmer, trumpet, fluegelhorn; Harold Mabern, piano; Tommy Williams, bass; Roy McCurdy, drums
Nola Studios, New York City, 25-27 October 1961

11424 Tonk
11425 Change partners
11426 Nobody's heart
11427 Ponsu
11428 The day after
11429 Lullaby of the leaves
11430 Kayin'

Track Listing

Punsu	Art Farmer	25-27 October 1961
The Day After	Tom McIntosh	25-27 October 1961
Lullaby Of The Leaves	B. Petkere & Jos. Young	25-27 October 1961
Kayin´	Art Farmer	25-27 October 1961
Tonk	Ray Bryant	25-27 October 1961
Blue Room	L. Hart & R. Rodgers	25-27 October 1961
Change Partners	Larry Coleman & Jos. Darion	25-27 October 1961
Nobody´s Heart	L. Hart & R. Rodgers	25-27 October 1961

Liner Notes

"I think of Art as 'Mr. Melody'. He has an uncanny gift for melody, and for the ways of weaving it in and out of harmonic progressions effectively, as though he were creating another composition himself. Art has a big, round, warm sound all his own, which makes his ballads seem to sing. Art doesn't compose very many tunes, but when he does, they are so meaningful...he has a vast knowledge of scales and modes, which is evidenced in his playing. I predict that before long, Art will be one of the biggest jazz trumpeters we have ever known."

Those comments were made back in 1960 by Benny Golson, shortly after he had become Art Farmer's partner in the direction of the Jazztet. Except that the word fluegelhorn may now be substituted for trumpet, all of Golson's remarks apply to the Farmer of 1964. Another important change can be made in the original text: that last sentence can safely be switched from the future to the present tense.

For the benefit of those who may have jumped on the Farmer bandwagon a few years late, a brief summation of his background may be in order. Born Arthur Stewart Farmer in Council Bluffs, Iowa, August 21, 1928, he was raised in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1945 he and his twin brother, the late Addison Farmer, moved to Los Angeles. With the exception of a 1947-8 hiatus in New York, Art remained a West Coaster for most of the next seven years, working with the bands of Horace Henderson, Floyd Ray, Johnny Otis, Benny Carter and the combo of Wardell Gray. In 1952-3 he spent a year in the memorable Lionel Hampton band that included Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones in its trumpet section; some records made in Sweden with a small group during that time were among the first to bring him national attention among jazz audiences.

Settling in New York in 1953, Art formed a group with Gigi Gryce, an alumnus of the same Hampton band. After a year or two off and on with Gryce, he joined Horace Silver's early quintet in 1956. Two years later he began an intermittent association with Gerry Mulligan that lasted several years and included a couple of motion picture assignments (I Want To Live), (The Subterraneans). After three years as co-leader of the Jazztet, Art struck out on his own again in late 1962; most recently he has been heard leading a quartet that features guitarist Jim. Hall.

During the Jazztet years, Farmer doubled between trumpet and fluegelhorn. Lately, however, he has completely abandoned the trumpet for public appearances, relegating it to practice sessions at home.

"The fluegelhorn gets the sound I want more consistently than the trumpet," he told Gene Lees in a Down Beat interview. "I like to hear the low notes. I talk in a low voice, and I like to play like that...if you want to shout and scream, then fluegelhorn is not the instrument."

If shouting and screaming is your musical meat, then this is not your album.

Art's personality is reflected in his approach to music just as surely as his softly modulated speaking voice is reflected in the sound of his horn. This is an unpretentious, mainly introspective session Of the kind that has led too often to comparisons between Art and Miles Davis. Analogies of this kind are a common ailment among jazz critics, who tend to throw names around as if to imply that every soloist has to have a stylistic genealogical tree. Farmer's is a typical case of a style that has undergone such labored analysis, while in fact the only need is for an examination of his work in its own terms. What you hear when you listen to these sides is not a Davis-influenced luminosity or a Hackett-inspired lyricism, but rather a Farmer-fashioned individuality.

Art's rhythm section is composed of men with impressive credits in the contemporary scene. Harold Mabern, whom I heard a while back as a member of Miles Davis' group, was also featured in the Jazztet during its later days and has been heard on records with Jimmy Forrest and others. As Harvey Pekar once observed. "He is a relatively unsung pianist who extracts a full, warm sonority from the instrument; he uses long, complex phrases on the up-tempo tunes, yet his work retains an aura of calm."

Roy McCurdy, a drummer so dependably effective that he has been referred to as Sturdy McCurdy, was also a member of the Jazztet and has been heard with Sonny Rollins and other combos around New York. Tommy Williams is best known for his work during the past couple of years with Stan Getz.

Punsu establishes the attractive mood of the set immediately. A simple but charming theme. it provides a framework for a long, beautifully flowing Farmer solo as vell as for a Mabem excursion that demonstrates the above-cited ability to avoid violence. Tommy Williams' chorus, too, is unspectacularly effective.

The Day After is an exquisite illustration of Art's ability to distill into a brief performance all the essence of his melodic creativity. Listening to this track, a non-musician friend of mine commented: "It seems as though he can even make a major chord sound minor."

Lullaby of the Leaver is an unorthodox treatment of the 1932 pop standard. After an opening chorus on which, except for the release, Art is accompanied only by Williams' walking bass, he yields the spotlight immediately to Tommy for a solo chorus. An unexpected and valuable-added touch is the casual commentary by Art during the second half of the bass and piano choruses, almost as if his horn were performing the comping role of a rhythm section member.

Kayin' was named for Art's manager, Miss Kay Norton. A brightish-tempoed theme on the regular 32-bar pattern, it recalls his confident comment about the mood generated with his horn: enjoy the feeling I get when I'm putting air through the fluegelhorn; the sound is natural and good, so I can stop worrying about how I sound and just worry about what I want to play and how to play it."

Tonk, not to be confused with the old Ellington-Strayhorn piano duet specialty of the same name, is based on an A-A-A-B structure in 16-bar stanzas plus an eight-bar release that is actually a variation of A. McCurdy's brush fills and general support are a bouyantly helpful element.

Blue Room, a Rodgers & Hart standard that goes all the way back to 1926, is introduced in a characteristically speculative Farmer mood, with occasional comments from Tommy Williams. In strong contrast is Change Partners, the most extrovert track of the session. McCurdy's support is a dynamic plus factor in this renovation of the 1938 Irving Berlin song.

The closing track, Nobody's Heart, offers a succinct compendium of virtues: a standard tune ideally suited to Art's idiom, a rerninder of his essentially melodic nature, a delightful interlude of quiet chording by Mabern, and, most impressive of all, the unaccompanied Farmer passages that open and close this low-key performance.

So many angry voices are being heard in jazz at present that the equanimity of an Art Farmer may seem anachronistic to the uninitiated. The truth. of course, is that the new and harsher sounds no more cancel out such values as Farmer's than James Joyce invalidates Dickens, or Baldwin Langston Hughes. As long as there is room for beauty and lyricism in jazz, such voices as Farmer's will newer be silenced.

LEONARD FEATHER