February 2002

From the Inside Out
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By Chris M. Slawecki

Blue Note Records' reputation as a source of impeccably performed and recorded Jazz ­ as a Jazz label ­ is enormous and heavy. That reputation may be almost too stellar: Because everyone thinks of Jazz when they think of Blue Note (and deservedly so) it overshadows the other styles that the best Blue Note artists incorporated into their Jazz. Blue Note cats could jump and jive, rock the house, break down the funk, and moan the blues ­ but it’s like almost nobody talks about the “Blue” part of Blue Note.

One way to rediscover those Blue Note Blues is the label’s ongoing Rudy Van Gelder Series (RVG), which presents classic Blue Note albums sparklingly reset in state of the art 24-bit digital audio by the original session engineer, the legendary Rudy Van Gelder. Albums updated and upgraded with alternate and unreleased takes in this series include: Ornette Coleman’s Live at the Golden Circle Volume One and Volume Two, the controversial saxophonist’s return to recording after his brief early 1960s retirement, featuring Coleman in the rare setting of a trio (with drummer Charles Moffett and classical bassist David Izenson); Meet You At the Jazz Corner of the World by perhaps the finest edition of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers ­ with Bobby Timmons, Wayne Shorter and Lee Morgan ­ and also one of the greatest live dates ever recorded on the hallowed Birdland stage; a live set by trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s legendary “lost” band, the Jazz Prophets (Round Midnight at Café Bohemia) ; and sets from Bud Powell (Volume 3: Bud!), Freddie Hubbard (Open Sesame), Bobby Hutcherson (the surprisingly experimental Dialogue with “free”-thinkers Sam Rivers, Richard Davis, and Andrew Hill), and The Sonny Clark Trio. The RVG series also provides the first release on CD of In Pursuit of the 27th Man, a Horace Silver date with his early ‘70s Quintet that included the Brecker Brothers,

Three other RVG titles bring out the Blue highlights from some of Blue Note’s best:

Donald Byrd: Slow Drag (1967)
As a keepsake of late 1960s hard bop in the classic trumpet / sax quintet format, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better set. With his longtime associate Sylvester “Sonny Red” Kyner on alto saxophone and the rhythm section of drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Walter Booker and pianist Cedar Walton, Byrd weaves Slow Drag together as a tapestry from the threads of the musical times: You can hear and feel the rocking tempos from Horace Silver’s “Spanish tinged” left hand, the abstract yet hip textures and hues of Oliver Nelson in the arrangements, and most importantly the soulful gospel of Cannonball Adderley in the musicianship. This RVG issue presents Slow Drag on CD for the very first time.

Slow Drag may best be remembered for Higgins’ hilarious, sardonic spoken-word “vocal” (“Mirror, mirror on the wall/ Who’s the fairest of them all/ Your momma!” and so on) on the title track. There’s plenty of first-rate music too: Red’s “Jelly Roll” has proved an enduring composition, a trip down into the dark, murkily aromatic root cellar of Jazz where Red honks out the first few verses in the gutbucket alto tradition of Adderley and Yusef Lateef as Walton spins out the piano boogie-woogie like a fleet-fingered poker shark. As for the leader, Slow Drag presents some of the finest playing Byrd ever committed to tape: His introduction to the romanticized “My Ideal” suggests the influence of the great ballad style of Miles Davis (and sounds even more lonely and brittle in Van Gelder’s remastered production). He absolutely saunters into the title track: His trumpet fashionably late in the beat, it leisurely surveys the room like a neighborhood badass cruising into his hometown bar; the slicing blue edge of his trumpet sound cuts up with his friends and winks at the ladies until his solo comes to rest in precisely just the spot it should. It’s perhaps the finest blues this Byrd ever sang.

Grant Green: Am I Blue (1963)
Through his work in various settings for Blue Note, Grant Green became known as the Jazz guitarist’s guitarist. On this leisurely set, drummer Ben Dixon and organist John Patton provide the rhythm, Joe Henderson on tenor and Johnny Coles on trumpet provide the solos, and Green dances between them all with the grace and elegance of an Ellington suite. The RVG issue also marks the first appearance on CD of Am I Blue.

Blue is of a single piece, stretching out into a slow leisurely groove in the very beginning of its opening title track and continuing its temperate yet soulful feel throughout all five selections. Every tune is a familiar standard. The arrangements and playing are relaxed ­ although not lazy ­ and made to feel even more soft and spacious by Van Gelder’s expert production. It’s like climbing onboard a wooden raft and meandering gently down a stream that seems in no hurry to travel to or from any place in particular (As a milepost: The soulful Ray Charles covered two of these songs, “Am I Blue” and the country standard “Take These Chains From My Heart,” wrapping them in his unique brand of soulful blues, too).

Green’s elegant yet earthy and blue single line improvisations present the kernel of his influence on nearly every guitar player who ever played a ballad or a blues. You’ll rarely if ever hear a guitarist sing on his instrument like Green states the melody to “I Wanna Be Loved,” a style which in retrospect sounds like it held enormous influence on Pat Metheny, Pat Martino, and plenty of other guitarists not named “Pat.” Coles also shines on “I Wanna Be Loved,” ruminating and whispering on the introduction and gliding through a mid-song solo with more shifts of rhythm and pitch than a major league knuckleball.

Jimmy Smith: Cool Blues (1958)
Jimmy Smith defined his entire career as the ultimate Jazz organ player (now in its sixth decade) through the albums he recorded for Blue Note, hard-rockin’ and tumultuous sets with Lee Morgan (The Sermon, 1958) and Stanley Turrentine (Back at the Chicken Shack and Midnight Special, both 1960) in particular. Cool Blues is perhaps the “Blue-est” of these three spotlighted RVG sets. Unlike the previous two RVG titles, this release does not mark the first appearance of this set on CD; it was issued in 1980 but was withdrawn to correct pitch problems. Van Gelder’s editing and recasting of this newly minted RVG issue sounds impeccable.

Cool Blues reaches back to the days of steamy dates in cramped clubs by musicians whose ultimate importance proved bigger than the small rooms which harnessed their sound, and who dropped into each others’ gigs to explore their mutual love of the music. Recorded at the legendary Harlem club Small’s Paradise in 1958, it captures Smith in an all-star jam with Art Blakey, Lou Donaldson and others. Their love of playing is quite evident, and “Sweet Lou” proves a worthy and inspiring foil to the Hammond B-3 organ master.

Listening to Cool Blues is almost like peering through a window into a time when musicians cared more about the integrity of the music than its marketability. Fully half of these eight numbers stretch out for longer than ten minutes, so ain’t no potential “hit singles” here; that’s just how long it took these cats to work ‘em out, so that’s how long they played. These epic monster jams include two be-bop classics — “A Night in Tunisia” (a version introduced from the stage as “a volcanic interpretation,” then churned into overdrive by the explosive Blakey) and “Cool Blues,” penned by be-bop high priest Charlie Parker — plus the standard “Dark Eyes” and “Groovin’ at Small’s,” one of two extemporaneous compositions about the room they were flooding over with groove. As Smith, Donaldson, Tina Brooks on tenor and guitarist Eddie McFadden playfully spin out and chase each other with lengthy solos, the listener’s head can begin to swirl like Wile E. Coyote trying to keep up with the Roadrunner!