Herbie Nichols Trio – May 6 1955
Blue Note Records – Herbie Nichols Biography
One of jazz’s most tragically overlooked geniuses, Herbie Nichols was a highly original piano stylist and a composer of tremendous imagination and eclecticism. He wasn’t known widely enough to exert much influence in either department, but his music eventually attracted a rabid cult following, though not quite the wide exposure it deserved.
Nichols was born January 3, 1919, in New York and began playing piano at age nine, later studying at C.C.N.Y. After serving in World War II, Nichols played with a number of different groups and was in on the ground floor of the bebop scene. However, to pay the bills he later focused on Dixieland ensembles; his own music — a blend of Dixieland, swing, West Indian folk, Monk-like angularity, European classical harmonies via Satie and Bartók, and unorthodox structures — was simply too unclassifiable and complex to make much sense to jazz audiences of the time. Mary Lou Williams was the first to record a Nichols composition — “Stennell,” retitled “Opus Z,” in 1951; yet aside from the song he wrote for Billie Holiday, “Lady Sings the Blues,” none of Nichols’ work got enough attention to really catch on.
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| Photo by Francis Wolff |
He signed with Blue Note and recorded three brilliant piano trio albums from 1955-1956, adding another one for Bethlehem in late 1957. Nichols languished in obscurity after those sessions, though; sadly, just when he was beginning to find a following among several of the new thing’s adventurous, up-and-coming stars, he was stricken with leukemia and died on April 12, 1963. In the years that followed, Nichols became a favorite composer in avant-garde circles, with tributes to his sorely neglected legacy coming from artists like Misha Mengelberg and Roswell Rudd. He also inspired a repertory group, called the Herbie Nichols Project, and most of his recordings were reissued on CD. Steve Huey
Richard Cook - Blue Note Records – Secker and Warburg 2001
The most important recording sessions of the year [1955] came during May and August, when Lion almost breathlessly set down as much as he could of a pianist called Herbie Nichols. For many years, Nichols was little more than a hidden paragraph in jazz history, but in the 1980s and 1990s he was comprehensively rediscovered, through the advocacy of Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd.
Richard Havers – Uncompromising Expression – Thames and Hudson
Aged 36 when he played his first Blue Note session, Nichols had been trying for years to convince Lion to give him a record deal. He was relatively obscure even then, making a living by playing Dixieland jazz rather than the more complex melodies and harmonic phrases derived from classical composers, such as Erik Satie. In a way, Lion was right to be hesitant: Nichols’s records sold extremely poorly. In more recent times, however, Nichols’s music has come to be more widely appreciated, with many finding him through his original instrumental. After Billie Holiday added lyrics, it became ‘Lady Sings The Blues’.
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| Photo by Francis Wolff |
Leonard Feather: The Prophetic Herbie Nichols Volume 1 BLP 5068
THERE IS a legend (or if not, there ought to be, and it shall be promulgated forthwith) that once upon a time there was a musician so great that nobody was quite capable of appreciating him. His technique made Horowitz and Tatum seem like bumbling amateurs. He played chords nobody else had ever played, because his stretch was as wide as his imagination, and he composed music that was extra-terrestrial. But observing that his work could never fully be absorbed or understood, he locked himself in a room with a fine Steinway and spent the rest of his life there, and when he died there was not a single soul on earth who had ever heard him play.
The questions that immediately come to mind are: when we assess the great men in contemporary music, how can we use comparatives and superlatives without allowing for the possible existence of men like this? And when a man has spent his life, in effect, playing in a vacuum, how can he be considered an essential part of the scene in any critical evaluation?
The story of the man in the legend has certain elements in common with that of Herbie Nichols, except that in the latter's case there is a happy ending. Herbie has been playing and writing music professionally since the late 1930s, but for all the attention his radically different ideas earned him he might as well have been locked in that lonesome room.
A product of the Hell's Kitchen area on Manhattan's mid-western flank, Herbie was born Jan. 3, 1919 and underwent a long period of classical training during seven years of childhood studies. His schooling finished, he started playing gigs around town, somewhat timidly at first "1 was afraid everyone would stop dancing," he recalls. While his time on the job was devoted to conventional musical chores, his spare hours would be saved for the creation of original musical lines which began to accumulate dust, or earn publishers' rejection slips, as far back as 1939.
A two-year Army stint that began in September 1941 was followed by a variety of jobs, musical, non-musical and sometimes anti-musical. ("I had a job as a clerk once, but they got sick of me — I was always running off to the piano.") More than once, too, he got pushed off the piano stool at Minton's, where the fledgling boppers knew him only vaguely as a peripheral figure. He became friendly with Thelonious Monk, however, even though Monk never became fully aware of Herbie's musical potential. "These records ought to surprise him," Herbie says. Working in all kinds of groups, Herbie says he enjoyed the experience, despite the lack of any chance to express his real personality. He spent almost a year with a night club band in the Bronx led by Edgar (Stomping At The Savoy) Sampson; a couple of weeks with Illinois Jacquet, and other stints with Snub Mosely, Sonny Stitt, Rex Stewart, Milt Larkins, Joe (trumpet) Thomas and the late John Kirby.
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| Photo by Francis Wolff |
During all those years, most of the men for whom he worked generally knew little about him beyond the fact that he could play very good Dixieland, or rhythm-and-blues, or whatever it was they wanted. The only musicians who have extended themselves a little to encourage him and express faith in his originality of conception are pianist Ellis Larkins, bassist Charlie Mingus and, more recently, alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce.
That Alfred Lion of Blue Note discovered Herbie Nichols should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the Blue Note catalogue; for it was on this label that Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell made their first memorable solo sessions, and it was Blue Note that gave so many great young pianists their first chance with an LP — notably Horace Silver, Wynton Kelly, Elmo Hope, Kenny Drew and Wade Legge.
When Herbie first submitted some of his compositions to Lion for consideration, the latter took him up to a midtown audition studio, where he listened carefully to 15 numbers as Herbie demonstrated them. To the amazement of Herbie, who by now had become accustomed to disappointments, he expressed unqualified enthusiasm for twelve of the numbers — the same twelve heard in these two LPs.
As you have doubtless inferred by now, Herbie Nichols is no ordinary new find. He comes about as close to complete originality within the orbit of jazz creation as anyone since Bud Powell and Monk. The main point of departure is harmonic. Herbie sounds exceptionally creative when working on his own themes. His first LPs consist entirely his own compositions.
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| Photo by Francis Wolff |
The opening number The Third World on the first LP (5068) typifies the noncomformist paths pursued by Herbie. (The title, by the way, derives from a chance remark made to him one night by alto man Sahib Shehab when both were working at the Elks' Rendezvous years ago. "What are you playing, man?" Shehab said, "You sound like you're in a third worlds") The 32-bar chorus starts: C 6, E Flat 7 / B Flat 6, D Flat 7 / A Flat, B 6/ B 6, A Flat 6/ F / F, B Flat 7 / E 7, A 7/ D 7, G 7 / repeated, with a release that runs from C 7 to F to D 7 to G. Against this foundation a strikingly heterodox melodic line is built.
Step Tempest, says Herbie, was written "in honor of Ellington. I wrote it years ago. The title is supposed to suggest 'stormy rhythm', with a lot of diminished changes to add color. The release, I think, recalls something of Duke's harmonic concept."
Dance Line is "One of those happy things — with a long double-time pattern." The next title, Blue Chopsticks derives from the fact that Herbie was sitting at the piano one day, started out with Chopsticks but wound up with this, which is akin to starting out with a thimble of water and finally encompassing the Atlantic ocean.
Double Exposure was so named simply to express an extra measure of satisfaction: there is no contrapuntal interpretation of the title, and Herbie hastens to add that he knows nothing about photography. Taken at a moderate pace, this one has a descending opening phrase that makes it one of the most melodic themes, and perhaps the catchiest; of the first set.
Cro-Magnon Nights is explained by Herbie: "One Saturday night I got to thinking how the Stone Age man might have spent his Saturday nights. To my mind this is one of the more successful mergers of an idea and a harmonic development, using major sevenths on the dominant chords. Sort of a smoky affair." Art Blakey and
Al McKibbon are especially helpful in sustaining this "smoky" air.
—LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz)
Cover Design by Martin Craig
Recording by Rudy Van Gelder
Roswell Rudd: Herbie Nichols – The Third World Liner Notes: BN-LA-485-H2
Notes can be found here: https://blp1553.blogspot.com/2021/04/bn-la-485-h2.html
Down Beat 21 September 1955 Volume 22 Issue 19
It’s taken 36-year-old Herbie Nichols a long time to get on record. Nichols has been a modern jazz pianist—and quite an individual one—since the early 40s, but he had to take a lot of jobs, several nonmusical, to earn bread in the years since then. Even his musical gigs have been with all manner of bands from Dixieland to r&b, but never with a combo where he could express his own ideas. Now, pioneering Alfred Lion of Blue Note (who is another excellent choice for a Newport Festival award for jazz achievement) has given Nichols his first chance to record.
This is the first in a series of Nichol’s LPs—all consisting of his own originals. The first set is largely composed, I believe, of his earlier works, and I wish I could have heard the whole series before writing a review of this one. What I do hear here is a man with a fresh harmonic individuality, an unusual, provocatively probing sense of humor, and an over-all imagination that would be welcome in any era of jazz. His music is also very warm and personal and grows and grows on the listener with each playing.
The only major thing that bothers me in this first LP is Nichols’ tendency to fragmentize his consistently interesting opening lines. These angular fragments are in turn interesting, but for Nichols to fully realize his unmistakeable potentiality, he should learn to build more cohesive, more organically interrelated, more constantly building wholes. These pieces, unique as they are, sound as if they need more structural work. And I’d also like to hear whether Nichols has created more lyrical, longer-lined material. On this LP Nichols is skillfully and swingingly accompanied by Art Blakey and Al McKibbon. Good recorded sound and helpful notes by Leonard Feather. The set is recommended as one of the fresher albums of the year. (Blue Note BLP 5068)
Session Information
Herbie Nichols, piano; Al McKibbon, bass; Art Blakey, drums
Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, May 6, 1955
tk.1, The Third World, Blue Note BLP 5068, BN-LA485-H2
tk.2, The Third World (alt)
tk.3, Step Tempest, Blue Note BLP 5068, BN-LA485-H2
tk.4, Dance Line, Blue Note BLP 5068, BN-LA485-H2
tk.6, Blue Chopsticks, Blue Note BLP 5068, BN-LA485-H2
tk.8, Double Exposure (alt)
tk.9, Double Exposure, Blue Note BLP 5068, BN-LA485-H2
tk.10, Cro-Magnon Nights, Blue Note BLP 5068, BN-LA485-H2
tk.11, Cro-Magnon Nights (alt)
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