Phineas Newborn, Jr.: A World of Piano!

Did a critic ever accuse classical concert pianist Martha Argerich of displaying too much technique while playing Ravel? It is hardly an idle question as Argerich, one of the most gifted pianists in history, plays Ravel beautifully precisely because she has the technique to do so. She could not play "Sonatine" or "Gaspard de la Nuit"—fearsomely difficult, say pianists—if she did not. The beauty is inseparable from the technique; and the technique part of the beauty.

This is hardly irrelevant to a discussion of Phineas Newborn, Jr. because he alludes to Ravel in his treatment of "Lush Life." One wonders if that is where Billy Strayhorn got it from, because some of its harmonic complexity is, well, very very. So why, the listener wonders, did critics who presumably knew Ravel and Debussy as well as Ray Noble write off Newborn as all technique? It makes no sense. It is hard to suppress the thought that something else was at work in unkind assessments of Newborn's work as emotionally superficial because it was technically almost without equal. Speculate, one must—envy, racism, or just general misanthropy? The principals are, at this remove, all dead and not talking.

When Newborn was coming to wider attention in the early to mid '50s, he was regarded as sensational, a worthy successor to Art Tatum, if not more. He came from a musical family, played multiple instruments, and was university trained. Yet, as Leonard Feather correctly notes in his liner notes, chops, soul, and swing have an uneasy relationship, even if boppers such as Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane were virtuoso players. Andre Watts, remember, did not come along until 1963, under the mentorship of Leonard Bernstein, and was rightly regarded as a racial pioneer in "legitimate" music. No one ever said Watts displayed too much technique, as if classical music, black skin, and big technique were somehow plausible. Newborn had Count Basie and Feather as advocates, nothing to sneeze at, but hardly of the same gravitas. And, of course, Newborn played jazz, the music of the brothel, not the music of the conservatory. What, one wonders, if he had chosen—assuming he could have chosen—Watts' path. No one will ever know.

This is all relevant because Newborn's meteoric rise was accompanied by an equally meteoric descent, attributed at first to "serious health problems." He recorded splendid albums—and this is surely one of them—but was also forced into periods of inactivity by apparent mental health issues. By the early to mid '60s, there was a sense that Newborn was a has-been, relegated to the status of "oh, him." He suffered an early death, at 56, and one wonders just what demons tormented him. Echoes of Bud Powell? Certainly.

A World of Piano! is just that, as advertised. There are several bop classics, such as "Cheryl," "Manteca," "Oleo" and "Dahoud," all remarkable for their tempo and dazzling technique, perhaps best appreciated by non-pianists by watching Newborn in a sampling of videos preserved on You Tube. One can see why onlookers sometimes, confusingly for the era, baptized him as a "digital" demon or the man with a thousand fingers. He was, literally, a two-handed player but, like Powell, could make a point by executing an entire tune with his left only. Seeing is believing.

Newborn's rhythm sections here are top flight. They had to be —especially the bassists—to execute at the tempos they did, sometimes doubling his lines, or sometimes seemingly functioning as a third hand while his other two dazzled in contrapuntal displays. Drummers Roy Haynes and Philly Joe Jones are more than up to the tempo challenge, as if Newborn needed any prodding. He clearly did not.

For those not familiar with Newborn —and he pronounced his name "fine as," according to bassist Ray Brown—this vinyl reissue by Craft Recordings is a good introduction. It is up to the same audiophile standards as the others the label has been releasing. The cover alone is worth the trip. Newborn has an ironic look, a sort of smile, as if he appreciated exactly what was happening to him. Not a happy story, but certainly an enlightening one all the same.

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