Illinois Jacquet - The Message
Released 1963
Recording and Session Information
Illinois Jacquet, tenor saxophone; bassoon; Ralph Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, Wally Richardson, guitar; Ben Tucker, bass; Ray Lucas, drums; Willie Rodriguez, percussion
RVG, Englewood, New York, May 5,7-8 1963
12447 On Broadway
12448 The message
12449 Turnpike
12450 Like young
12451 Bassoon blues
12452 Bonita
12453 Wild man
Track Listing
| The Message | Ben Tucker | May 5,7-8 1963 |
| Wild Man | I. Jacquet | May 5,7-8 1963 |
| Bassoon Blues | E. Edwards, I. Jacquet | May 5,7-8 1963 |
| On Broadway | Leiber, Stoller, Mann, Weil | May 5,7-8 1963 |
| Like Young | Andre Previn | May 5,7-8 1963 |
| Turnpike | I. Jacquet | May 5,7-8 1963 |
| Bonita | E. Edwards | May 5,7-8 1963 |
Liner Notes
THE career of Illinois Baptiste Jacquet has been punctuated by commercial highs and lows. He served his musical apprenticeship in the Southland, largely in Texas where he was reared and he paid dues aplenty while learning his craft. When he joined the Lionel Hampton band in Los Angeles he was only eighteen and an unknown except to those restricted audiences privileged to have heard him play the tenor saxophone so exuberantly in obscure clubs and dreary dance halls. Hampton, always a discerning judge of musical talent, was startled the first time he heard him blow and immediately predicted greatness for him and an assured place in the pantheon of jazz. Jacquet worked with the Hampton organization for three turbulent years, polishing his style and learning from his accomplished boss all the tricks of showmanship. A year spent with both the Cab Calloway and Count Basie bands groomed him further for the stardom which came inevitably, and when in 1947 he decided to quit the role of sideman and lead his own group he had already been adjudged one of the most important and creative performers on his instrument.
If this latest album of Jacquet's, The Message, contains a message it is an emphatic statement that the Latin American influence on American jazz is pervasive and profound and that the Latin rhythms can be applied to the blues with exhilarating results. Much of this album is Latin but the idiom is American. All his life Illinois Jacquet has been sentimentally attached to French influence in art and music, but Latin melodies and rhythms have exerted an increasingly powerful impact on him. The Afro-Cuban explosion in U.S. jazz rocked him traumatically. The samba stirred him. The subtlety and melodic beauty of the Brazilian bossa nova fascinated him.
"Latin rhythms, played well with appropriate melodies, can create a wonderful, satisfying feeling", Jacquet observes enthusiastically. "Latin music gives you a grip, something exciting to work with. Making this album mainly in the Latin manner was an experience for Jacquet, precisely because his own small group seldom plays this of material or in this style."
Drummer Ray Lucas, who plays with the King Curtis group, inflamed the ardor of the other participating musicians and gave a priceless unifying drive to the sessions which were spread over two days. Lucas has a sureness of beat, great versatility and the ability to adrust to almost any problem posed. He avoids a fault of many contemporary drummers; creating unnecessary volume with the bass pedal. He communicates effectively and makes the soloist feel the rhythm patterns he creates. "You always know that Ray is there", says Jacquet, "and there is never any problem about time, the most important thing in music".
Like Young, an Andre Previn tune, is given a warm blues interpretation by the group, with organist Ralph Smith playing the bridge and guitarist Kenny Burrell taking two exquisite choruses. Nowhere else in the album is the Lester Young influence on Illinois Jacguet's playing more evident than in his first two choruses which recall the fluent, poetic Prez of the 1930's. All of Jacquet's reverence for the great Lester Young is present in his playing on this track. "I never realized I was so close to Prez until I heard this side played back", Jacquet confessed.
Ralph Smith is a Detroiter who moved to New York in 1962 and whom Jacquet hired after hearing him play one set at the Purple Manor in Harlem. A gifted and modest man, Smith injects his religious upbringing into his playing, has excellent techmque and is ambitious and studious. "Ralph Smith has a blues stream in his soul", Jacquet says poetically. "He could become one of the great organ players of our time".
The blues, Turnpike was written by Jacquet while playing an engagement at Lennie's Turnpike, a small club in West Peabody, Massachusetts, where he has a host of faithful fans who provide him with some of his best audiences. Jacquet venerates the blues, regards them as the foundation of his art. He has written many blues tunes and says "I've got many more blues to write". His earliest memories of the blues reach into his childhood in Houston, Texas where his father, Gilbert Jacquet, led a blues band which Jacquet listened to for hours. It was in Houston where Illinois aspired to become a dancer and formed a dance trio with two older brothers, Russell and Linton. He danced before he learned to play a saxophone. "We were born with the rhythm and raised on the blues", Jacquet says with pride. "If you can't play the blues, you're not a jazz musician".
Esmond Edwards, who was A & R man for this album, wrote Bonita, a minor blues-like number with Latin overtones. An oddly beguiling melody, Bonita provides Jacquet with an excellent vehicle for delightfully demonstrating the creative marriage of American jazz and Latin themes.
Bassist Ben Tucker, who wrote The Message, flew up from Washington to record the album at the invitation of Jacquet, who admires his instrumental talent as well as his compositional gifts. Ralph Smith plays the organ with fine restraint under Jacquet's soft but strong tenor line. What message does Ben Tucker here convey? Jacquet offers this explanation "Ben is saying who he is and where he came from, what he thinks and what he believes".
Wild Man, an uptempo blues, was written by Jacquet and dedicated to Boston disc jockey, Wild Man Steve Gallen. Jacquet, blowing with the big "Texas sound", that characterizes so much of his playing, dominates, but Kenny Burrell's long intricately-executed guitar solo is one of the memorable performances of this album. Jacquet knows a lot of disc jockeys around the country. "Disc jockeys are some of the most important people in this country", he maintains. "They are the salt of the earth for they spin musicians' records day and night for millions of people and thus help keep the business going".
Ever since that day in 1957 when he purchased a bassoon in Berlin while touring Europe with a Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe, Jacquet has wanted to play the instrument competently enough to record with it. A college music instructor visiting his Long Island home showed him how to assemble the instrument and explained the G Scale to him. Jacquet practiced on the bassoon usually when relaxing at home after grueling road tours. He played it in public for the first time last year at the Shanty Lounge in Boston and was encouraged. During the recording session it was decided that Jacquet should do a number with the bassoon and this blues theme was created on the spot. "I have a lot of blues in me", says Jacquet with a knowing smile.
Now 41 and a composed and reflective man, Illinois Jacquet is content to play the smaller clubs backed by Ralph Smith and drummer Jual Curtis. The lush years of the big money are behind him now, but he finds immense satisfaction in his attractive family and golf. Life has been good to him and he had no regrets today, even though his income does not approach the high-water mark of $250,000 he earned in 1947 and 1948. "It isn't the money you make", he says philosophically, "but how you live life that counts".
—Allan Morrison
