Jazz Articles about Jack McDuff

Jack McDuff Big Band: Prelude

by David Rickert
October 5, 2003

McDuff was one of the artists able to capitalize on the success of Jimmy Smith, who briefly made organ combos fashionable in the sixties. Prelude is the third in a series of McDuff compilations that comb his prolific Prestige years for the best material. Whereas the first two were split between live and studio recordings, this recent disc covers the tracks recorded with a big band under the leadership of Benny Golson.

This new approach was an ...

Jack McDuff: The Last Goodun'

by David Rickert
October 10, 2002

McDuff has been well served by reissues this year, what with a pair of two-fers from Fantasy and one from Blue Note. This CD, the flip side of this year’s The Concert McDuff features selections from the remainder of studio recordings not currently in print. Fortunately McDuff was consistent enough of a player that the program never seems like leftovers, and in fact is a wonderful introduction to McDuff for those who have never ventured beyond Jimmy Smith when it ...

Brother Jack McDuff: The Concert McDuff

by David Rickert
August 15, 2002

Jimmy Smith may be the king of the Hammond B-3, but in the 1960s Brother Jack McDuff could produce records equal to just about anything Smith put out, particularly when recorded in a live setting. The eleven tracks featured here are culled from a variety of concert recordings from Newark to Stockholm and all cook like mad; “Love Walked In” is taken at a much faster tempo than Gershwin probably ever intended and even “Four Brothers” becomes a scorcher in ...

Jack McDuff: The Concert McDuff

by Derek Taylor
August 1, 2002

Despite the drab classicism its title might imply this disc delivers a set of music that’s a distant departure from run-of-the-mill repertory .pap. Jack McDuff might’ve been given the moniker of Hardest “Working Man on the Touring Circuit” if a certain Detroit Soul Man hadn’t donned it first. He was certainly deserving given the grueling touring schedule he subjected himself to during the late Fifties. All the hard work and living finally started to pay dividends in the Sixties and ...

Jack McDuff: The Soulful Drums

by Derek Taylor
July 1, 2001

Essentially collaborative ventures the two albums collected on this Prestige two-fer are not only vehicles for McDuff but also, as the title denotes the Soul-injected percussion of Joe Dukes. Both sessions are heavy on grooves, but each suffers from the clichés of the soul jazz idiom despite the dynamic drum play at the core of the group. Broken record boogaloos often relegate all but Dukes to supportive riffing and the glut of incessant vamping behind the drummer’s frequent breaks often ...

Jack McDuff: Brotherly Love

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2001

Brotherly Love would have been one of those feel-good Jack McDuff albums that reunites some of his early collaborators and some of the musicians he helped train (dozens of them!)...were it not his last album.Instead, Brotherly Love takes on a double meaning: a reference to the Philadelphians who join him on the album (Pat Martino and Joey DeFrancesco) and an acknowledgement of the fraternity (and, yes, sorority-or, well, camaraderie) of musicians who develop lifelong friendships and instinctive understandings ...

Jack McDuff: Brotherly Love

by AAJ Staff
July 1, 2001

Brotherly Love would have been one of those feel-good Jack McDuff albums that reunites some of his early collaborators and some of the musicians he helped train (dozens of them!)...were it not his last album.Instead, Brotherly Love takes on a double meaning: a reference to the Philadelphians who join him on the album (Pat Martino and Joey DeFrancesco) and an acknowledgement of the fraternity (and, yes, sorority-or, well, camaraderie) of musicians who develop lifelong friendships and instinctive understandings ...