1952 - November 19

The Lou Donaldson Quintet – November 19 1952 

 

Leonard Feather – Liner Notes: Lou Donaldson – Quartet/Quintet/Sextet - BLP 1537 – February 1952  

 

If I Love Again, the opening opus, is one of the quintet sides in which Blue Mitchell’s trumpet serves to complement Lou in a two-horn opening and closing ensemble. Mitchell is a trumpet player who has played with Earl Bostic and other rhythm-and-blues bands including Lou, keeping his talent somewhat obscured. Lou’s solo here set the pace for his work throughout the album; his tone known brassy and pinchy, in keeping with the mordant, swinging attack and the Bird-like conception and phrasing.  

Down Home, an original 12-bar composition, shows that Lou, like many bop musicians (including Parker himself) has always kept faith with the blues, and with the real down-home blues, as this title makes self-evident. He even starts his last chorus here with the “my-mama-done-told me” phrase that has become almost a basic blues statement. 

The Best Things in Life Are Free, a standard recently brought back to prominence by the movie of the same title, exemplifies Lou’s approach to old pop songs: after outlining the melody with only slight variations in the first chorus, his improvisational talent reaches its peak in the second. At least, the second chorus here is the passage that happens to impress me most, though the quality and variety of his work is so impressive overall that there will probably be many different “favorite” solos among the fans who listen to this remarkable session. 

Sweet Juice is a Horace Silver original with a cloudy, reflective quality into which Lou instills considerable added charm with one of his more restrained performances. 

Lou Donaldson biography – Scott Yanow 

https://www.bluenote.com/artist/lou-donaldson/ 

 

Lou Donaldson has long been an excellent bop altoist influenced by Charlie Parker, but with a more blues-based style of his own. His distinctive tone has been heard in a variety of small-group settings, and he has recorded dozens of worthy and spirited (if somewhat predictable) sets throughout the years. 

Donaldson started playing clarinet when he was 15, soon switching to the alto. He attended college and performed in a Navy band while in the military. Donaldson first gained attention when he moved to New York and in 1952 started recording for Blue Note as a leader. At the age of 25, his style was fully formed, and although it would continue growing in depth through the years, Donaldson had already found his sound. In 1954, he participated in a notable gig with Art Blakey, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, and Tommy Potter that was extensively documented by Blue Note and that directly predated the Jazz Messengers. However, Donaldson was never a member of the Messengers, and although he recorded as a sideman in the ’50s and occasionally afterwards with Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, and Jimmy Smith, among others, he has been a bandleader from the mid-’50s up until the present. 

Donaldson’s early Blue Note recordings were pure bop. In 1958, he began often utilizing a conga player, and starting in 1961, his bands often had an organist rather than a pianist. His bluesy style was easily transferable to soul-jazz, and he sounded most original in that context. His association with Blue Note (1952-1963) was succeeded by some excellent (if now-scarce) sets for Cadet and Argo (1963-1966). The altoist returned to Blue Note in 1967 and soon became caught up in the increasingly commercial leanings of the label. For a time, he utilized an electronic Varitone sax, which completely watered down his sound. The success of “Alligator Boogaloo” in 1967 led to a series of less interesting funk recordings that were instantly dated and not worthy of his talent. 

However, after a few years off records, Lou Donaldson’s artistic return in 1981 and subsequent soul-jazz and hard bop dates for Muse, Timeless, and Milestone have found the altoist back in prime form, interacting with organists and pianists alike and showing that his style is quite timeless.  

Down Beat 3 June 1953 Volume 20 Issue 11 

The pop song is done at a brisk pace, leaving room for ample amplification of its harmonic contours by Lou's alto and Blue Mitchell's trumpet. Down Home, as its title implies, is a slow 12-bar blues. Lou plays it with the warmth that boppers are so often, so wrongly, accused of lacking. Horace Silver and Mr. Mitchell also acquit themselves honorably. (Blue Note 1610) 

Down Beat 23 September 1953 Volume 20 Issue 19 

The soaring alto man in Cheek to Cheek, five-starred here earlier, with some handsome co-operation from pianist Horace Silver on this and seven others. Four are by a quintet, with Blue Mitchell’s trumpet. (Blue Note 5021) 

Notes etc. 

Blue Mitchell’s first Blue Note recording session 

Session Information 

Blue Mitchell, trumpet #2-4; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Horace Silver, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Art Blakey, drums. 

WOR Studios, NYC, November 19, 1952 

 

BN457-0 tk.1, Sweet Juice, Blue Note 1609, BLP 5021, BLP 1537 

BN459-1 tk.8, Down Home, Blue Note 1610, BLP 5021, BLP 1537 

BN460-1 tk.10, The Best Things In Life Are Free, Blue Note 1609, BLP 5021, BLP 1537 

BN458-5 tk.12, If I Love Again, Blue Note 1610, BLP 5021, BLP 1537 

1952 - October 20

Horace Silver Trio – October 20 1952 

 

Leonard Feather: Horace Silver Trio Liner Notes – BLP 1520 – October 1956 

Most inquiring jazz fans became aware of Horace Silver when he was first with the Stan Getz quartet in 1950. It is a tribute to Stan’s taste and musical foresight that he plucked Horace from a small nightclub in Hartford, Connecticut. Talent will always shine if someone will only open the curtain. Stan and other leaders like Terry Gibbs, Lester Young and Art Blakey helped to open that curtain on Horace and once it was opened the audience didn’t want it closed. It wasn’t a huge audience but it was an enthusiastic one. There was one more ingredient needed to make Horace’s performances more widely known and this Was illumination At this point Blue Note entered and Alfred Lion, a master with “Flood lights, foot lights, spotlights and color wheel,” shed so much light on the Silver piano that the whole country saw and heard him. In fact, the light carried overseas too, for Horace won the new star award in the Down Beat International Critic’s Poll in 1954. 

 

There are many other rewardingly individual originals. “Ecaroh” has two different themes, one at the opening and the other making an effective peak at the close. The “can’t get it out of your head” “Horoscope” is as fresh to me now as when I used to wake up to it every morning of a Florida vacation in the winter of 1953. The typical affirmative reaction to the name of Horace Silver is explained by the contents and represented in the title of “Yeah” and the 1953 Horacio Sterling that is put on display in the “Silverware” department is both highly polished and utilitarian. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

 Ran Blake: Horace Silver – The Trio Sides – Liner Notes – BNLA-474-H2 – 1975  

"Yeah", another original, completes the first recording session. The solo, idiomatic of very early 1950's Horace, is less singular than that of "Horoscope" and doesn't have the foretaste of his later style. 

[NB – The released versions of Yeah are from the October 20 1952 session] 

"Ecaroh" is one of the most durable of Horace's earlier works, It was recorded for Columbia in a quintet version, Horace's solo begins with a simplified bop line, then he rhythmically crushes fifths. 

"Prelude To A Kiss", from the Ellington book, (which so often includes unacknowledged Billy Strayhorn) finds Horace in a less personal mood. After a nice introduction, the melody is treated with reharmonized East Side rubato; then there is a tempo section and block chords. 

The real Horace Silver bursts forth on the freewheeling "Quicksilver", There is an "Oh You Beautiful Doll" quote. Are there stories behind these quotes? 

Especially impressive is the first side closer, "Knowledge Box", which for many years has been unavailable and is quite a gem. Unlike "Horoscope", his ideas often contain themselves in 8 bar phrases. The results sound easy, There are even a few predictable sequences, but few pianists can cook with such heat. The 32-bar be-bop figuration has been pared to its essence. 

 

This LP represents the beginning of Horace’s recording career as a leader and contains the best trio sides from 1952 and 1953. His later recordings which led to the formation of the Jazz Messengers can be heard on Blue Note BLP 1518. 

Michael Cuscuna – Senor Blues Liner Notes BNJ-61005 1984 

From October 20 come "Quicksilver" and "Knowledge Box". "Quicksilver" is a typical, wonderful Horace creation which was later immortalized on the Art Blakey recordings of 1954. "Knowledge Box" is a lesser known piece. Ran Blake wrote of this, "Especially impressive..."Knowledge Box" is quite a gem. His ideas often contain themselves in 8 bar phrases. The results sound easy. There are even a few predictable sequences, but few pianists can cook with such heat. The 32 bar be-bop figuation has been pared to its essence." 

Photo by Francis Wolff

Bob Blumenthal – Horace Silver Trio RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes – 2003 - (5 80906 2) 

Selecting the most significant Horace Silver Quintet albums is a tricky business. Ever since he began his career as a bandleader in 1956, it has been hard to think of the name Horace Silver without the word quintet attached. Silver’s immediate and ongoing success in presenting a unit with a two-horn front line tempts us to overlook his earlier triumphs in the trio format, sessions (collected here in their entirety) that were the source of his initial popularity. Two of Silver’s primary influences, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, had already taped definitive modern trio music for Blue Note, and producer Alfred Lion also employed the format in introducing pianists Kenny Drew, Elmo Hope, Wynton Kelly and Herbie Nichols. The trio format also proved ideal for highlighting the charged Silver piano style, his memorable writing and (for the first time) commanding presence as a leader. 

Silver had been in New York for two years prior to the first of these sessions, working and recording with Stan Getz, Lou Donaldson and Terry Gibbs while also backing such legendary figures as Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge and Lester Young in the city’s clubs. Several early Silver compositions appeared on Getz and Donaldson sessions in 1951 and ‘52, offering the first signs of his structural invention, humor and ability to create vivid musical atmospheres. Silver’s first Blue Note appearance with Donaldson in June 1952, which includes the gem “Roccus,” also revealed new definition and personality in the pianist’s instrumental conception. That encounter led to New Faces — New Sounds: Introducing the Horace Silver Trio, taped in two October sessions, and to Horace Silver Trio Volume 2 thirteen months later. The majority of the music from these 10" LPs found its way onto 12’ BLP1520; although space limitations required the omission of four of the 16 tracks that remained unavailable for over two decades. The present volume includes all of the music from Silver’s two initial albums, presented in the original 10" program sequences. 

The New Faces Volume was done in two separate sessions, with bass duties shared by Gene Ramey and Curly Russell. Ramey is on the earlier, October 9 date, which produced "Horoscope," "Safari" and "Thou Swell." (Certain sources notwithstanding, a version of “Yeah” from this initial session has never been issued.) The originals reappeared later in Silver Quintet arrangements — "Safari," with an intriguing introduction and coda added, on the 1958 Further Explorations album, and “Horoscope,” respelled, as the title track of Horace-Scope from 1960. “Thou Swell,” omitted from the first 12’ reissue, features one of Silver’s quirky stop-time intros, Art Blakey’s galvanizing beat and a “Let It Snow” allusion draped across two choruses so indicative of Silver’s mastery of quotation. 

Photo by Francis Wolff

Russell, who would join Silver and Blakey in February 1954 on the classic A Night At Birdland recordings, is the bassist at the October 20, 1952 session, and provides a rare example of his bowing technique on “Prelude To A Kiss.” Neither the irregular melody “Knowledge Box” nor “Quicksilver” (based on the chords of “Lover Come Back To Me”) were included on BLP1520; but two quintet versions of “Quicksilver” were part of the aforementioned Birdland albums. The remaining two titles with Russell also saw life in quintet versions, with the complex, spellbinding "Ecaroh" on The Jazz Messengers (Columbia, 1956) and “Yeah” as an uptempo flagwaver on the Horace-Scope album. 

Horace Silver – Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty – University of California Press p79 I went into the studio three times to do trio recordings for Alfred. I used Art Blakey drums for all three sessions, with Gene Ramey on bass for the first, Curly Russell for the second, and Percy Heath for the third.

 

 Session Information 

Horace Silver, piano; Curly Russell, bass; Art Blakey, drums. 

WOR Studios, NYC, October 20, 1952 

 

BN452-1 tk.2, Quicksilver, Blue Note BLP 5018, BN-LA474-H2 

BN453-2 tk.6, Ecaroh, Blue Note BLP 5018, BLP 1520, BN-LA474-H2 

BN454-0 tk.7, Yeah!, BLP 5018, BLP 1520, BN-LA474-H2 

BN455-3 tk.11, Knowledge Box, Blue Note BLP 5018, BN-LA474-H2 

BN456-3 tk.15, Prelude To A Kiss, Blue Note BLP 5018, BLP 1520, BN-LA474-H2