LP-677

Al Grey - The Thinking Man's Trombone

Released 1961

Recording and Session Information

Joe Newman, trumpet; Al Grey, Benny Powell, trombone; Billy Mitchell, tenor saxophone; Charlie Fowlkes, baritone saxophone; Freddie Green, guitar; Eddie Higgins, piano; Eddie Jones, bass; Sonny Payne, drums
Chicago, August 23, 24 & 25, 1960

10385 Tenderly
10386 When I fall in love
10387 Don't cry baby
10388 Al-amo
10389 Rompin'
10390 King Bee
10391 Salty papa
10392 Stranded

Track Listing

Salty Papa	Al Grey	August 23-25 1960
Don't Cry Baby	Johnson, Bernie, Unger	August 23-25 1960
Stranded	Frank Foster	August 23-25 1960
Rompin'	Frank Foster	August 23-25 1960
King Bee	Al Grey	August 23-25 1960
When I Fall In Love	Victor Young	August 23-25 1960
Al-amo	Thad Jones	August 23-25 1960
Tenderly	Lawrence, Gross	August 23-25 1960

Liner Notes

AL GREY is the thinking man, acquainted with all kinds of musical facts, and "The Thinking Man's Trombone" is what Barbara J. Gardner calls his axe. It was in 1945 that Al first started thinking on the stand, when he joined Benny Carter's band.

"Benny Carter was the first band I played with. That's where I got the foundation. He used t'stay on me so, he's such a masterful cat — a teacher, really."

When Benny quit it and went into the Hollywood studios where the giggin' is easy and the bread more steady, Al and the rest of the band were on notice, so when the magnificent Jimmie Lunceford came, saw, and offered Al a chair, Al was ready.

"Jimmy and I had the same birthday, June 6, so we always celebrated together. With Benny everything had been played long, but with Jimmy everything teas played short, altogether different. He was somethin'!"

After Mr. Lunceford's untimely demise in 1947, Al went with Lucky Millinder, a bandleader who didn't play note one on any kind of horn, but whose band included — at one time or another — practically every present-day great jazz musician ever born. To drop names is not my intention. Besides, they really ARE too numerous to mention.

"We was always swingin."

After Al departed the Millinder camp, he went with Hamp.

"We played that hand-clappin' music - them crows-pleasers."

From Lionel Hampton, Al, tired of roamin' and ready to rest a bit, entered the studios with Sy Oliver and for awhile that was it. Then, tired of sittin' on someone else's stand, Al formed his own band.

"We played the southern circuit...like B.B. King an' them...seldom got up home for any length of time. We were mostly playin background for rhythm-and-blues...Gatemouth Brown was shoutin' blues with us for awhile...seldom chance to play..."

So Al quit, retired to Philly, then joined Bullmoose Jackson. From that job Al went with Arnett Cobb, and from there to a most exciting stand with Dizzy Gillespie's big band.

"That was it."

Then, in 1957, when Diz called it quits, Al went with Basie, where he now sits.

After being with practically every thinking man in jazz, except Duke Ellington, it's no wonder Al Grey is a thinking man. It's hard to remember when he wasn't sitting with a band full of thinking men, each of them with his own way, and each of them teaching Al another way t'play, so that, even though he's still in tender days, he can play all different ways!

Salty Papa Blues is the instrumental introduction to a Dinah Washington blues that got it every ounce, especially around Hastings Street in Detroit, where Paul Williams turned it into The Hastings Street Bounce. Don't Cry, Baby was an Erskine Hawkins hit, sung by Jimmy Mitchell in his way, sung here by Al Grey, arranged for tenor, trumpet, baritone, and two bones by Thad Jones. Stranded, is composed and ranged by Frank Foster, and you can hear the cats cryin' because the promoter done dealt with 'em underhanded, split with the bread, and left 'em stranded. Rompin' is Frank Foster's sequel, tellin' what the cats were doin' on the very next gig, after bein' stranded outa' their wig.

King Bee is Al Grey's all the way, composition. arrangement, and gig to play, written for Clifton (King Bee) Smith, a Houston, Texas deejay.

"Clifton was a big help in those days (southern barnstorming.) He helped so much until I said, 'One day I'm gonna' write a tune and name it for him and record it."

When I Fall In Love is arranged by Nat Pierce, the other piano player with the Basie crew, and it's pretty. too.

Al-Amo composed and arranged by Thad Jones, is a light, bright, crisp, smooth, modern ditty — very pretty.

Tenderly was arranged by Clare Fischer, pianist with the Hi-Lo's, America's prettiest-sounding vocal quartet. It is played a capella, and Thad is directing, don't forget.

"People like to listen to music, and sometimes they like to have somethin' to dance by too, just that good feelin'."

That's what Al says. That's the way it was, and in this album, giving that good feelin', is just what Al Grey does.

Jon Hendricks

LP-676

Buddy Rich - Playtime

Released 1961

Recording and Session Information

Buddy Rich And His Buddies
Sam Most, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone; Mike Mainieri, vibes; Johnny Morris, piano; Wilbur Wynne, guitar; Richard Evans, bass; Buddy Rich, drums

Chicago, October 3, 1960

10463 Will you still be mine?
10464 Misty
10465 Lulu's back in town
10466 Cheek to cheek
10467 Makin' whoopee
10468 Fascinatin' rhythm

Dpn Goldie, trumpet; Sam Most, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone; Mike Mainieri, vibes; Johnny Morris, piano; Wilbur Wynne, guitar; Richard Evans, bass; Buddy Rich, drums

Chicago, October 4, 1960
10469 Playtime
10470 Marbles

Track Listing

Lulu's Back In Town	Dubin, Warren	October 3 & 4 1960
Playtime	Sam Most	October 3 & 4 1960
Will You Still Be Mine	Dennis, Adair	October 3 & 4 1960
Fascinating Rhythm	George & Ira Gershwin	October 3 & 4 1960
Making Whoopee	Kahn, Donaldson	October 3 & 4 1960
Marbles	John Morris, Sam Most	October 3 & 4 1960
Misty	Erroll Garner	October 3 & 4 1960
Cheek To Cheek	Irving Berlin	October 3 & 4 1960

Liner Notes

THERE is in jazz a certain elite — a cadre of musicians who, regardless of their moment-to-moment status with the layman, are universally admired Sv their competitors. One such is Dizzy Gillespie, who has for years been considered by trumpeters the unchallenged master of their instrument. Another is Ray Brown, the favorite bass player of almost every bassist in jazz.

A third is Buddy Rich, who has been called "the world's greatest snare drummer" by one of his awed competitors. So incontrovertible is Buddy's mastery of all the drums in le batterie, as the French call it, that he sails securely over all the wayward waves of fad and vogue. When he is playing a club date in New York, you'll see countless name drummers in the audience. They listen, grin, frown, chuckle appreciatively, shake their heads with an I-don't-believe-it air, and sometimes walk away mumbling.

"Rich is my drummer," Joe Morello has said. "I can sit for hours just watching his hands and feet."

Buddy does things that are unbelievable for any drummer," Philly Joe Jones has observed, And young Billy Higgins says simply, "The guy is fantastic."

Rich-s attributes include pair of hands which. whether handling sticks or brushes, are so fast and deft to be mystifying; incredible precision and superb touch and taste; and a rock-steady sense of time. When Rich is in a rhythm section, there is never for the listener that faintly insecure feeling that comes when the tempo is wandering: you know it's going to stay right where it's supposed to be.

These talcnts were almost lost to jazz in the fall of 1939. At that time, Rich, on tour in the South, Rich was stricken by a heart attack. He recovered, but doctors that he had better give up thinking about drumming: he would not be able to again for a long time, if ever.

They evidently didn't know Buddy very well. Scarcely six months later, he opened at Birdland with a brand new group. The group has been going strong ever since, and so has Buddy.

But Buddy is not the only remarkable musician in the new group. Another is Mike Manieri. If Buddy is a drummer's drummer, Mike bids fair to become the vibraharpist's vibraharpist. Buddy discovered him last spring.

Comment on Mainieri is best coming from Don DeMicheal, managing editor of Down Beat. De Micheal is unique among jazz critics in that he was a working jazz musician for 10 years before he became a writer. His instruments, as it happens, are drums and vibraharp. In consequence, he is pretty much the indisputable authority on vibes among jazz critics. In an article on Mike in the Oct. 27, 1960 Down Beat, DeMicheal indicated that in his view, Mike is the best technician yet to play jazz vibes. DeMicheal pointed out that a vibraharpist can speed by sacrificing volume and power — by keeping the mallets close to the instrument.

"Manieri," he wrote, "not only can match (Red) Norvo in speed and precision of attack, but plays at greater volume, even at breakneck tempos. He also comps like a pianist, as Red does. But he has carried this technique a degree further than the bearded one — Mike is more pianistic. He has developed the ability to produce moving-voiced tremolos with the two mallets in his left hand while the two in his right play variations.

"He uses this seldom-heard technique on up-tunes as well as ballads. But it is on the slow tunes that his mastery is most apparent. However, it's more than awe at his use of spread chords and the tremolo effect that rivets listeners' attention to his ballad work: his clean. nonfunky approach charms them with sweet-breathed innocence. Hard-eared audiences, callous to any jazz group, suddenly become silent when Maimcri plays a slow tune. Even the glasses stop rattling. When he is through, there sort of stunned silence, then applause comes like the roar of surf."

Buddy is enormously proud Of his protege, as you will notice in the exuberant backing he Manieri and the other members of the sestet on this, their first LP was a group. It was, in fact, a relaxed and happy date at which was made. So informal was it that when trumpeter Don Goldie, from the Jack Teagrden group. dropped in at Argo's Chicago studio to listen, Buddy suggested that he sit in. That's how it happens that you hear a trumpet on two two tracks of this disc. You can consider it a preview of Don Goldie: his own first Argo LP is due out shortly.

The Buddy Rich Sextet is a fresh and different group. Mainieri (who does much of the group's arranging) voices his vibes with Sam Most's excellent flute. The resulting sound is a curious mixture of strength and delicacy, of power and sheer loveliness.

We think this is a happy sound. Considering the talents involved, that's just what it should be.

Al Portch

LP-675

Richard Evans Trio - Home Cookin'

Released ?

Recording and Session Information

Jack Wilson, piano; Richard Evans, bass; James Slaughter, drums

May 1960

Cottage Groove
Minor Adjustment
Late Date
Whatever Lola Wants
The Trolley Song
A Night In Tunisia
Jackleg
Spring Is Here