Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond were busy trading in the irregular time signatures that made their album’s staples in college student jazz collections the country over. Chico Hamilton had the lock on chamber jazz popularity on the West Coast with his piano-less quintet and a string of popular records for Pacific Jazz. Fertile Third Stream experiments were propagating on both shores through the work of genre-straddling composers like Gunther Schuller and Jimmy Giuffre. But arguably more than any other working band, the Modern Jazz Quartet was the chief flag bearer of chamber jazz. They also had the benefit of longevity, sustaining a career that spanned five decades and allowed for plenty of successful solo ventures along the way.
The MJQ’s style of African American music effectively drew in listeners outside the usual jazz orbits. Their cross-cultural appeal supplied ammunition to detractors and cynics who claimed their sounds were sugarcoated and orderly to the point of banality. Any close attention to the music in context reveals a different reality altogether. The MJQ’s brand of classical tinged small ensemble jazz carried the trappings of recital hall formality and precision. But the four could also be considered subversive wolves cloaked in sheep’s clothing. Along with more obvious elements of elegance and erudition, they brought a splash of the ribald flavor of speakeasy blues with them. They may have dressed to the nines in gray flannels, suspenders and spats, but the band was still a far cry from the starched collar suits of the typical symphonic string quartet.
Recordings for Prestige and Pablo bookend the MJQ’s lengthy middle tenure at Atlantic. Together they present a telling before and after picture by beginning with the band’s bop origins and charting a logical evolution. Fantasy’s sumptuous package collects all extant recordings from these early and late periods in a sturdy cardboard slipcase embossed with simple, but stately graphics. An accompanying booklet is ripe with historic photos and contains illuminating essays by Eugene Holley and Chris Sheridan, along with color facsimiles of the original album covers.
The real selling point here though is the music, four disc’s crammed to the gills with a total of 54 tracks, starting with the earliest incarnation of the MJQ and the redoubtable Kenny “Klook” Clarke perched on drum stool. The band had its origins in the partnership of Milt Jackson and John Lewis, who had met as members of Dizzy Gillespie’s late 1940s orchestra. Recognizing their kindred musical souls, the two men set about trying out different ensembles under Jackson’s leadership until signing with Prestige and adopting the now famous acronym. Disc one includes material from four albums. The first session shows the core three already fitting into what would become their formal roles: Lewis as principal composer, Jackson as primary soloist and Heath as harmonic anchor. Clarke’s forceful bop-heavy drumming makes for a bold contrast with entrance of Kay’s more expansive sticks on “Ralph’s New Blues,” at the close of disc.
For their third Prestige session the MJQ teamed up with one of the labels most influential tenor men, Sonny Rollins. The results of the meeting are predictably more overtly bop-oriented, but that’s where the obviousness ends. The MJQ would record with other guest stars over the years, Paul Desmond among them, but this early conclave with Rollins really is something special. Rollins pushes the four through his restless improvisations and they in turn coax him into leavening his knife-edged tone to a degree. What might’ve been an oil and water blend ends up mixing like a finely stirred gin and tonic. The winsome meeting of the minds is immediately noticeable on “In a Sentimental Mood” where the tenor’s romance-rich tone floats contemplatively against the lush support of Jackson’s lambent vibes and Clarke’s calming brushwork. Rollins’ more playful side comes out on “The Stopper” as he negotiates a melodic obstacle course set up by Jackson’s punctuating mallets and Heath’s fast break bass line. “Almost Like Being in Love” affords Clarke the space to engage in his signature brand of press roll breaks, lighting a fire under the saxophonist and sparking some spirited exchanges.
