LP-660

Milt Buckner - Mighty High

Released 1960

Recording and Session Information

Jimmy Campbell, alto saxophone; Milt Buckner, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Joe Benjamin, bass; Maurice Sinclair, drums
New York, December 2, 1959

9906 Burnt out
9907 Syncopated clock
9908 Abstractions
9909 Organ grinder's swing
9910 Two flights up
9911 D.T.'s
9912 After hours
9913 Mighty high
9914 Teach me tonight
9915 Haunting me
9916 Castle rock
9917 Willow Weep for Me

Track Listing

Mighty High	Milt Buckner	December 2 1959
Teach Me Tonight	DePaul	December 2 1959
Abstraction	Milt Buckner	December 2 1959
Two Flights Up	Buckner, Turner	December 2 1959
After Hours	Parrish, Bruce	December 2 1959
D.T.'s	Buckner, Turner	December 2 1959
Organ Grinder's Swing	Hudson, Parrish, Mills	December 2 1959
Willow Weep For Me	Ronell	December 2 1959
Burnt Out	Milt Buckner	December 2 1959
Syncopated Clock	Leroy Anderson	December 2 1959
Castle Rock	Sears, Drake, Shirl	December 2 1959
Haunting Me	Heywood	December 2 1959

Liner Notes

A CHANCE REMARK of Lionel Hampton changed Milt Buckner's career completely. It led him from the piano to organ. It changed him from an unknown pianist to one of the most widely acclaimed organists of the day.

Actually, Milt began playing piano way back in the '30s with McKinny's Cotton Pickers and Jimmy Raschell. In 1941 he joined Lionel Hampton's band and remained with him until 1948, when he left to form his own band. However, he felt that his greatest opportunity remained with Hampton and so rejoined him in 1950. It was during this time Milt became famous for his compositions and arrangements. The most famous of these was the tune titled Hamp's Boogie Woogie.

One night Lionel happened to ask Milt if he could play the organ. Milt replied, "I can't, but I'll try." After a few weeks of practicing Milt played to the public. At first he had some difficulty with the volume control, operated by a foot pedal, and as Milt says, '"Hamp would give me a funny look when my note was sustained long after the chord changed."

After thoroughly mastering the organ Milt left the Hampton band to start his own small group. The group was an immediate success and recording sessions and club dates have been plentiful ever since.

Among the tunes in this album are five Buckner originals, including the title composition, Mighty High. It's a slow-moving blues that features Kenny Burrell's guitar, in addition to Milt's powerful organ.

Abstraction is a moody ballad whose theme is stated first by altoist Jimmy Campbell.

Two Flights Up is a swinger that's voiced like a big band arrangement. The mounting tension it builds going into the final jumping chorus will remind many listeners of the arrangements Milt used to write for the Hampton powerhouse.

D.T.s does not stand for delirium tremens — it is the initials of Danny Turner, the co-writer on the tune.

Burnt Out, another finger-snapper, is dedicated to a Hammond organ of Buckner's that got caught in a night club fire one night and got '"burnt out."

Among the other tracks on the album is a particular favorite of mine, Willow Weep For Me. Milt's solo is at once humorous and bluesy and I expect it's one track on this LP that I'll wear out.

Organ Grinder's Swing, a big hit back in the mid-FOS when it was recorded by Jimmie Lunceford's band, gets a spirited swing with a touch of highland fling in Buckner's version.

Haunting Me is a new Eddie Heywood composition recorded here for the first time.

With Milt on the date are two musicians from his home town of Philadelphia, saxist Campbell and drummer Maurice Sinclaire, who are part of his traveling group. On guitar is Kenny Burrell, one of jazz' best-known plectrists and an Argo recording artist in his own right. The bassist is veteran Joe Benjamin, heard with many groups in the last few years, including Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck, and Barbara Carroll.

I think that you will find much enioyment from the sounds created here by a well-groomed group. Musically it shows Milt Buckner's "locked hands" technique oil at his "feather-fingered" best. Meaning the quality truly is Mighty High.

Burt Burdeen

LP-659

The Metropolitan Jazz Octet - The Legend of Bix

Released 1959

Recording and Session Information

The Metropolitan Jazz Octet
Ed Haley, trumpet; Ed Avis, valve trombone; Dave Edwards, alto saxophone; Tom Hilliard, tenor saxophone; Benny Baileys, britone sxophone; Gerry Lofstrum, bass; Jim Gianais, drums
New York, August, 1959

9649 In the dark
9650 Nick La Rocca
9651 Candlelights
9652 Little Louis and the King
9653 In a mist
9656 Flashes
9657 Paul Mares
9658 Davenport blues
9659 The ballad of Emmett Hardy

Track Listing

Nick La Rocca	Tommy Hilliard	August 11-12 1959
Little Louis And The King	Tommy Hilliard	August 11-12 1959
Paul Mares	Tommy Hilliard	August 11-12 1959
The Ballad Of Emmett Hardy	Tommy Hilliard	August 11-12 1959
11-12 August 1959	Bix Beiderbecke	August 11-12 1959
Flashes	Bix Beiderbecke	August 11-12 1959
Davenport Blues	Bix Beiderbecke	August 11-12 1959
In The Dark	Bix Beiderbecke	August 11-12 1959
Candlelights	Bix Beiderbecke	August 11-12 1959

Liner Notes

About Bix

BIX BEIDERBECKE was obviously the sort of man about whom legends insist upon growing. He lived for only twenty-eight years, and his career actually spanned less than a decade (most of that time spent in bands that could not do justice to his sensitive, lyric jazz talents). Yet he was a tremendous influence on all the musicians who heard him: the Chicagoans, not much younger than he, made him their idol; and such listeners as Louis Armstrong, Red Nichols, and the men who worked alongside him in the Paul Whiteman and Jean Goldkette orchestras seem to have been uniformly awed and amazed. He remains a vivid, affectionate and larger than life-size memory to almost all who knew him — and to a great many who didn't. He remains, in short, the number one jazz legend.

Grauer and Keepnews
Pictorial History Of Jazz

Born in Davenport, Iowa, on March 10, 1903. From a comfortable and cultivated family, he studied piano briefly under Professor Grade of Davenport, who claimed that the boy did well for one who played so entirely by ear. He picked up the cornet shortly after hearing Nick LaRocca on The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recordings. His interest led him next to King Oliver and the young Louis Armstrong.

As to who was the most important influence on his cornet playing, there is much controversy to this day. Some feel that Paul Mares from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings was strongly felt. Others are of the idea that near legendary Emmett Hardy (died at twenty-two, having never recorded), must have been the most important influence. As it is with legends, it is difficult to keep the facts straight.

Of the more persistent images of him that are drawn for us, we discover an absent-minded kind of Peter Pan who drank too much, played cornet like no one else, and when too inebriated to blow, would sit down at the piano and improvise strange, haunting melodies, of which, only five were ever set down on paper. He died on August 6, 1931. The mortal remains of Bix were interred on August 10, 1931. The immortal remains on his recordings, and in the five pieces for piano that we still have with us.

About The Music

We have tried to create a fantasy on the coming of age of a young man who was deeply involved in the beginnings of a very new art form, It is based, primarily, on the music of the men who were supposed to have influenced him, chronologically : Nick LaRocca, childhood;
King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, adolescence;
Paul Mares, youth;
Emmett Hardy, the man who could have been.
The composition Nick LaRocca is based on two different phrases played by La Rocca.

 

This one is from The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recording of Tiger Rag.

 
This is from The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recording of Clarinet Marmalade, Both phrases are lightly introduced, developed, and ultimately restated.

Little Louts And The King is derived from a re-rhythmitization of King Oliver's West End Bluer and two consecutive Louis Armstrong cornet choruses on Oliver's Dippermouth Blues.

Paul Mares is represented by the chord progressions of Shim-Me-She-Wobble and the Mares chorus from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings' recording of same.

The Ballad Of Emmett Hardy begins with the name Emmett Hardy, musically stated. It is broadened and finally concluded by Bix' famous chorus from I'm Coming Virginia.

The five pieces for piano were orchestrated with thought to their original value and meaning.

About The Group

The Metropolitan Jazz Octet began as a rehearsal group in August, 1957. They have been enthusiastically received on all their public appearances, including a first-time-ever performance by a jazz group at the celebrated Old Town Art Fair in Chicago.

Tom Hilliard

LP-658

Richard Evans Trio - Richard's Almanac

Released 1959

Recording and Session Information

The Richard Evans Trio
Richard Evans, bass; Jack Wilson, piano; Robert Barry, drums
Ter-Mar Recording Studios, Chicago, July 21, 22 and 23 July, 1959

9609 Jeepers Creepers
9610 I'm glad there is you
9611 Trees
9612 Vera
9613 The Preacher
9614 Consu
9615 Crazy Rhythm
9616 Bye bye, blackbird
9617 Daybreak (unissued)
9618 Should I?

Track Listing

Trees	Rasbach, Kilmer	July 21-23, 1959
Vera	Richard Evans	July 21-23, 1959
I'm Glad There Is You	Madeira, Dorsey	July 21-23, 1959
The Preacher	Horace Silver	July 21-23, 1959
Crazy Rhythm	Meyer, Kahn, Caesar	July 21-23, 1959
Bye Bye Blackbird	Henderson, Dixon	July 21-23, 1959
Daybreak	Adamson, Grofe	July 21-23, 1959
Consu	Jack Wilson	July 21-23, 1959
Should I	Brown, Freed	July 21-23, 1959
Jeepers Creepers	Warren, Mercer	July 21-23, 1959

Liner Notes

LINER NOTE WRITING, unlike other forms of fun-and-profit endeavor, is a unique and significant means of expression. It is the last bastion in the struggle to preserve The Impertinent Essay.

This profound realization came to me quite suddenly recently, while I was sitting in the bathtub thinking about the Richard Evans trio and its performance in this LP. I thought about all the jazz critics, musicologists, psychologists, philosophers, night club comedians, record company owners, sociologists, and eccentrics writing liner notes. Every thirty seconds a set of liner notes is born, I said to myself. Obviously in need of inspiration, I splashed a bit of lukewarm water in my face and thought what some of the leading liner note scholars would say about this album.

Heinz Gruber-Jung, the noted classical composer and Birdland bleacherite, would write: "It is notable that Evans, in both his choice of keys and diminished chords, should reflect the thinking of both Bela Bartok and Luke Appling. But, of course, it was Monk who began it all be playing tonic chords with his jaw in 1947.

Or Morton Willhoff, editor of The Jazz Cipher: "Evans, it seems to me, plays in an angular, variegated fashion—a pastiche of James P. Johnson, Heinrich Wasserman, and Rob Roy. Of course, it was Heinz Gruber-Jung who first termed his playing 'notable'."

Or Ara Gitwit, the jazzman's friend and usher at some of the most epochal jazz record sessions: "Evans blows. He blows hard. And when he blows the other guys join in. They dig him. They blow, too. It's wild."

Somehow, I couldn't imagine any of these approaches being the right one. After all, this marked Evans' debut on records as leader of his own group. The record was important to him. So I talked with Evans.

I discovered that he is 27 years old, that he was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He came to Chicago when he was five. He was more concerned with painting than music (he won a citywide contest, as a painter, when he was at DuSable high school in Chicago). When he was 17 he began studying trombone, then turned to bass. After a stint in the army from 1953 to 1955 (as an illustrator), he returned to his home and worked with local jazz groups.

In 1956, he spent eight months as bassist with the band of Lionel Hampton, touring Europe and Australia. He spent three months with Maynard Ferguson's band, then accompanied Dinah Washington in '57. After a session of study at Wilson junior college, he returned to jazz, working local concerts, jamming at sessions, and accompanying visiting singers (including Dakota Staton). From November, 1958 to May, 1959, he headed his own trio at the southside Pershing Lounge.

He has recorded with Ferguson, Hampton, Miss Washington, and a group headed by Chicago jazzman-philosopher Sun Ra. His compositions (he's turned out approximately 25 to date; more are in the work) have been recorded by Johnny Griffin (Where's Your Overcoat, Boy), Hampton (Lullaby Of Forrealville) and Benny Golson (This Night).

Jack Wilson, the pianist in the Evans trio, is 23. He's from Fort Wayne, Indiana, but Evans met him in Atlantic City in 37. Evans was with Dinah Washington; Wilson was heading his own quartet. Soon, Wilson joined the Washington entourage. In '58, Wilson settled down in Chicago as a member of Evans' group. A months ago he entered the army. He's currently performing as a musician-in-uniform.

Drummer Robert Barry, 27, has been playing drums since he and Evans were classmates at DuSable. His experience has been confined to local groups, including those of Johnny Griffin and Sun Ra.

Evans had no intention of creating a "new music" for this date. "The tunes are digestible, not involved," he told me. "They're not for musicians only. This is music the people can dig, too." The tunes were selected because Evans "liked the way the chords ran; they gave us food for thought."

Eight of the tunes are standards. Trees, by Joyce Kilmer and Oscar Rasbach, dates from 1922, but is planted in modern earth here. I'm Glad There Is You, a Jimmy Dorsey-Madeira collaboration, is given a Latin flavor by the Evans trio. Horace Silver's The Preacher is gospelish enough to make Mildred Falls smile; on it Evans takes an arco solo (note that he's out of the solo light most of the time). Crazy Rhythm, which goes back to Broadway in 1928, features drummer Barry, logically enough.

Bye Bye Blackbird, another oldie, features Evans again, briefly and tastefully. Daybreak is the most balladic of the lot. Should I (remember the 1929 Hollywood film, Lord Byron Of Broadway? Neither do I.) bounces along lightly, with some walking bass and fleet Wilson piano. Jeepers Creepers (Hollywood again: the 1958 film, Going Places) is the sprightly closer.

The two originals — Evans' Vera and Wilson's Consu — have a common inspiration. Each is a tribute to the musician's fiance. Vera emerges here as a Latinish type, zestful and bright; Consa (for Consuela) is moody and softly romantic.

And that's it — three young musicians performing eight standards and two originals, On their initial LP as a trio.

I could say that this LP will live forever in the annals of recorded sound. I could say that this trio will "gas you" or "recall moments of Ravel or Debussy. But I won't.

As Wynton Kelly, one of our leading free thinkers, says, "I'm only one...guy." I'll stop right here. The rest is for listening.

Don Gold