Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Don Wilkerson: The Complete Blue Note Sessions

191

Don Wilkerson: The Complete Blue Note Sessions

By

View read count
Don Wilkerson: The Complete Blue Note Sessions
One of the paragons of the "Texas tenor" style, Don Wilkerson gained his greatest notoriety as a soloist with Ray Charles throughout much of the 50s and 60s. Less known is Wilkerson’s limited work as a leader, the majority of which is collected on this two-disc package from Blue Note. Wilkerson made three albums for the label during the fruitful years of 1962 and 1963: Preach Brother!, Elder Don, and Shoutin’! All three records feature guitarist Grant Green, who certainly knows how to cook in such a setting. The first also boasts a classic Blue Note rhythm section: Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums, with Jual Curtis sitting in on tambourine on "Dem Tambourines" and "Camp Meetin’." On the second album, Johnny Acea takes over on piano, with Lloyd Trotman on bass and Willie Bobo on drums. The last of the three sessions is particularly down and dirty, with Green, John Patton on organ and Ben Dixon on drums.

The prevailing ethos of Preach Brother! is simply summarized: blues, blues, and more blues. And not the fancied-up bebop variety, but straight-up shuffle and boogie and soul. Every track is a blues except for the closer, "Pigeon Peas," a funky thing in AABA form. The two later albums are a bit more compositionally varied. Wilkerson begins Elder Don with exquisitely singing tenor work on "Senorita Eula" and then salutes his fellow Texan Bob Wills with "San Antonio Rose." (Grant Green’s solo on the latter has to be heard to be believed.) From this point on there’s still plenty of blues, but Wilkerson breaks it up with originals like "Scrappy" and "Drawin’ a Tip." He also showcases a totally different aspect of his talent on the ballads "Poor Butterfly" and "Easy Living."

Personnel

Don Wilkerson
saxophone, tenor

Album information

Title: The Complete Blue Note Sessions | Year Released: 2001 | Record Label: Nonesuch

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.