1955 - May 13

Herbie Nichols Trio – May 13 1955 

 

Leonard Feather – Down Beat May 18 1955 Volume 22 Issue 10 

A talk with Alfred Lion, the Berlin-born jazz fan who founded Blue Note Records in 1939.  

How strangely different the record business was when Victor, Columbia and Decca and their subsidiaries were the only companies making popular and jazz records! Of the handful of independents who entered the field to change that monotonous picture, Lion’s is the only outfit still active on a fulltime basis. 

The intellectual Lion, who pores over each tiny detail of every new release with the same loving care an artist devotes to a painting, is an anachronism in the world that has sprung up around him. He has just the cosmopolitan and artistic background you might expect of a man who began a jazz label in 1939—son of an art dealer, an art dealer himself, and an artisan in interior decoration, he lived here from 1927 to ’31, then became aware of jazz m the early ’30s when Sam Wooding, Gene Sedric, and Tommy Ladnier were in Europe, when he heard Duke Ellington in Holland and other jazzmen in Spain. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

After many international peregrinations, including a year living in Chile, Lion returned here in 1937. Sensing the need for a new record outlet, he operated virtually out of his hat for the first year or so, aided by another German-born jazz fan, Francis Wolff. Anticipating the need for longer-playing discs by making mostly 12-inch 78s, they recorded artists they believed in, almost regardless of their sales potential. As jazz progressed from traditional to modern styles and from 78 to LP, they followed both trends. Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, Monk, and Tadd earned the persevering attention they had given to Frankie Newton and Meade Lux Lewis a decade earlier.  

Surrounded by a whole jungle of tigers, elephants, and even a couple of skunks, the Lion and the Wolff seem like lambs in today’s LP prairie. Or you might say they are the guys with the successful grocery store, patronized by all the friendly folk in the neighborhood, who see new branches of the A & P springing up at every corner, selling coffee for a few cents less. 

Perhaps 16 years of sincere, stubborn sponsorship of unknowns have built a reservoir of goodwill that enables them now to maintain that vital balance between economic security and artistic integrity. At all events they provided me with a reminder that the profit motive, desirable though it is in a society such as ours, smells a little sweeter when you can sense that an esthetic objective was at least equally important. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

Leonard Feather: The Prophetic Herbie Nichols Volume 2 BLP 5069 

LP 5069 opens with Amoeba's Dance, which, believe it or not, was not intended as a pun on Anitra's Dance, but simply as an interpretation of another of Herbie's whimsical fancies: "I imagine," he says, "a one-cell animal would be happy, too," There's a slightly Monkish flavor to this theme. Art Blakey's interludes with the sticks (not to mention his quizzical coda) add a special touch of spice, and Al McKibbon does some great things here.

This number is an example of what Herbie calls "floating keys"; actually it is in G but starts in E Flat, proceeding through F to G. The release runs from G to E Flat, B Flat 7, E Flat and back to G. 

Crisp Day, a light staccato affair, marches briskly in a fresh-sounding reflection of the title. 2300 Skiddoo is, Herbie admits, an arbitrary title, but there's nothing arbitrary about the music, with an easy-going, walking-rhythm theme that swings compellingly. 

It Didn't Happen implies some special recollections: "I was thinking of a lady friend, years ago we didn't hit it off. In spite of the melancholy mood, I was sort of happy that it didn't happen." The tempo here is fast, the key minor, and the format 12-12-8-12; Blakey, exchanging thoughts with Herbie on the non-occurrence, again plays a major supporting role. 

Shuffle Montgomery (Herbie says some friends in Brooklyn named him Montgomery as a gag) has changing chords under a repeated theme and is, at least to these ears, the most charming and memorable theme in the second set. Brass Rings, with its rising bass line and rising and falling harmonies, refers to the image of a youngster on a merry-go-round reaching for the brass rings. 

No comment on Herbie Nichols' record debut would be complete without a tribute to Al McKibbon and Art Blakey, in whom he found the ideal rhythm team to complement, supplement and implement his ideas. McKibbon, luckily available between jobs with George Shearing, was one of the very few bass players who could have been counted on to feel and follow the unconventional bass lines of Herbie's work, while Art, as always, showed his instinctive ability to feed the piano and bring out the rhythmic implications of each number. 

When you listen to these unique performances you may be as surprised as I was to find out that Herbie, for so many years, managed to enjoy working in so many combos that covered so much earlier ground. The fact is that Herbie has no Johnny-come-lately approach to jazz: he knows and appreciates the contributions of every jazzman back to the days of Jelly Roll Morton. 

—LEONARD FEATHER 
(Author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz) 

Cover Design by Martin Craig 
Recording by Rudy Van Gelder 

November 1955

Down Beat 28 December 1955 Volume 22 Issue 26 

This is the second volume by the vigorously — and often whimsically — original Herbie Nichols. He is supported by the excellent bassist, Al McKibbon, and the powerful Art Blakey. As in the first set, all the originals here are by Nichols. Again, they are characterized by angular, energetic lines that do not flow but rather dart and plunge. His harmonies are pungent, often unexpected, and often quickly changing. In addition to the frequently too fragmentized nature of his originals noted in the review of the first LP, there is another criticism to be made on the basis now of hearing two Nichols collections. 

There is up to now too much of a sameness in the general character and impact of Nichols writing. It is almost all angularity. There are no long-lined, lyrical statements nor are there any structures that build into really memorable many-faceted totalities (like John Lewis’ Fontessa, for example).  

Herbie Nichols at Alfred Lion's
home - May 1955
Photo by Francis Wolff

Here, then, is a really individual talent with a deep rhythmic sense, much warmth and an unusual store of equally unusual humor. But Nichols has considerably further to go in terms of broadening his writing —and his playing — conception. His opening lines are usually quite engaging, but they’re seldom developed as well and as extensively as they should be. But the set is recommended for a challenging, however limited, jazz experience, Very good recorded sound. (Blue Note LP 5069) 

Washington Post 22 January 1956 Issue 48 

Herbie Nichols, who is blessed with a unique compositional style and an antic imagination, plays six more of his rhythmically and harmonically stimulating compositions on his second Blue Note release (BLP-5069). Nichols is at his refreshing best on “Shuffle Montgomery,” a perky little theme. 

Session Information 

Herbie Nichols, piano; Al McKibbon, bass; Art Blakey, drums. 
Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 13, 1955 

tk.14, It Didn't Happen (alt) tk.16, Amoeba's Dance, Blue Note BLP 5069, BN-LA485-H2 tk.17, Brass Rings (alt) tk.18, Brass Rings, Blue Note BLP 5069, BN-LA485-H2 tk.19, 2300 Skidoo (alt) tk.20, 2300 Skidoo, Blue Note BLP 5069, BN-LA485-H2 tk.21, Shuffle Montgomery (alt) tk.22, It Didn't Happen, Blue Note BLP 5069, BN-LA485-H2 tk.23, Crisp Day, Blue Note BLP 5069, BN-LA485-H2 tk.24, Shuffle Montgomery, Blue Note BLP 5069, BN-LA485-H2