JazzWax

Johnnie Pate: Swingin' Flute

2019-05-22T00:05:00-04:00

I love gorgeous jazz flute albums, and there are so many of them. Off the top of my head, there's Ernie Wilkins's Flutes & Reeds, Harold McNair's Flute & Nut, Buddy Collette's Swinging Shepherds and Swinging Shepherds at the Cinema, Billy Taylor's With Four Flutes, A.K. Salim's Flute Suite, Yusef Lateef's The Golden Flute, The Herbie Mann–Sam Most Quintet, Art Van Damme's Squeezing Art & Tender Flutes and many more. Here's one more for you. [Photo above of Johnnie Pate]

In 1957 and 1958, bassist and arranger Johnnie Pate recorded Swingin' Flute for the Federal label in Chicago. On the November 1957 session, Swinging Shepherd Blues, The Elder, Easy Does It and Five O'clock Whistle were recorded by Lenny Druss (fl), Floyd Morris (p), Wilbur Wynne and Johnnie Wynne (g), Pate (b) and Vernell Fournier (d). Pate had a national hit with Moe Koffman's Swinging Shepherd Blues, which reached No. 17 on Billboard's R&B chart in the spring of 1958.

In March and April 1958, Pretty One, Muskeeta, Satin Doll, Double Promotion Blues, Whistle Blues, Deeno Dantay, Little Pixie and I Can't Go Through Life were recorded by Ronald Wilson (fl,ts) Billy Wallace (p), Wilbur Wynne (g), Johnnie Pate (b) and Donald Clark (d).

Both Lenny Druss and Ronald Wilson were multi-instrumentalists. They played saxophones, oboe, clarinet and flute on recording sessions. Despite playing all of these instruments beautifully, both musicians were fairly obscure and remain so today. Neither Druss nor Wilson have a Wiki page, for example. As for Johnnie Pate, he led trios in Chicago in the early and mid-1950s and eventually crossed over to arranging later in the decade. One of his last albums on bass was James Moody's Last Train From Overbrook in 1958.

Throughout the 1960s, Johnnie arranged for Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions and he arranged pop albums for artists such as Nancy Wilson. In the '70s, he composed and arranged for black action films such as Shaft in Africa (1973), Bucktown (1975), Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976) and Sudden Death (1977).

Having interviewed Johnnie for my WSJ essay on Mayfield's People Get Ready (go here), I can tell you he's a wonderful, elegant guy.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Johnnie Pate's Swingin' Flute here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Swinging Shepherd Blues...

Swinging Shepherd Blues

Here's I Can't Go Through Life...

I Can't Go Through Life

And here's Pretty One...

Pretty One

Manny Albam: Soul of the City

2019-05-21T00:05:00-04:00

In 1966, producer Sonny Lester, engineer Phil Ramone and arranger-composer Manny Albam launched Solid State Records as the jazz division of United Artists. The label specialized in sophisticated fidelity to maximize an emerging generation of component stereo systems. The days of bulky console phonographs were ending and a new era of speakers, integrated receivers and turntables purchased individually had begun. [Photo above of Manny Albam]

Solid State's albums were recorded using transistorized gear. The label's albums were positioned specifically for solid state stereo equipment, which processed music with semiconductors rather than vacuum tubes. The result was more musical information projected through the speakers. [Photo above of a Sony ad from 1966]

To put Solid State's wide-sound promise to the sonic test, Albam recorded The Soul of the City. He composed, arranged and conducted the songs, Lester produced and Ramone engineered. The New York band was staggeringly first rate: Ernie Royal, Joe Newman, Burt Collins, Snooky Young, John Frosk and Freddie Hubbard (tp); J.J. Johnson, Eddie Bert, Wayne Andre and Tony Studd (tb); Jimmy Buffington, Earl Chapin, Howard Howard and Al Richman (fhr); Jerome Richardson, Phil Woods, Don Ashworth, Chuck Russo, Frank Wess and Seldon Powell (reeds); Mike Mainieri (vib); Hank Jones (p); unknown (g) Richard Davis (b) or Ron Carter (b); Mel Lewis (d); Phil Kraus (perc) and strings.

The Soul of the City was a concept album featuring Albam's musical impressions of different New York scenes. To enhance the concept, sound effects such as babies crying, a police siren, a sports crowd cheering, a city river's lapping against its banks and a jet flying overhead were overdubbed briefly in places. Each of the songs offers a different impression but resists becoming an orchestral View-Master of New York. Instead of celebrating tourist destinations, Manny limited his impressions to obscure places he found audibly interesting: Born on Arrival; Children's Corner; Museum Pieces; Game of the Year; View From the Outside; Tired Faces Going Places; View From the Inside; Ground Floor Rear (Next to the Synagogue); Riverview and El Barrio Latino. [Photo above of Manny Albam]

The soloists are superb:

Born on Arrival — J.J. Johnson (tb), Phil Woods (as) and Hank Jones (p)
The Children's Corner — Jerome Richardson (fl), Mike Mainieri (vib) and Woods
Museum Pieces — Woods and Mainieri
The Game of the Year — Frank Wess (ts), Woods and Johnson
A View From the Outside — Woods, Burt Collins (flhn) and Johnson
Tired Faces Going Places — Collins (tp)
A View From the Inside — Joe Newman (tp), Johnson
Ground Floor Rear (Next to the Synagogue) — Richard Davis (b), Freddie Hubbard (tp)
Riverview — Mainieri, Woods, Jones
El Barrio Latino — Ernie Royal (tp)

The Soul of the City lived up to expectations. As the label boasted, "[The line] deftly blends superb artists and magnificent performances with dynamic range and absolute cleanliness of recording." As for Manny Albam, the album remains an unheralded and virtually unknown masterpiece. Every inch of the recording is bold, elegant, fresh and cool. Why this recording hasn't been reissued is a travesty. [Photo above of Sonny Lester]

Manny Albam died in 2001; Phil Ramone (above) died in 2013. Solid State Records ceased production in late 1969.

JazzWax tracks: Manny Albam's The Soul of the City can be found on vinyl here or the tracks can be found hidden on an Albam CD and download compilation here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Museum Pieces with solos by Phil Woods and Mike Mainiari...

Museum Pieces

Here's Tired Faces Going Places, with a trumpet solo by Burt Collins...

Tired Faces Going Places

And here's El Barrio Latino, with a trumpet solo by Ernie Royal...

El Barrio Latino

A special thanks to David Langner and Michael van Gee.

Harry South: Further South

2019-05-20T00:05:00-04:00

Combine the sound of Quincy Jones's and Maynard Ferguson's big bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s and you wind up with Harry South. The British pianist, composer and arranger led monster big bands in the U.K. during these years. The bands he assembled included crack instrumentalists such as Ronnie Scott, Ronnie Ross and Tubby Hayes. South knew he had a hot thing going. In the early '60s, he imagined a world where bands like his were the rage once the Liverpool mop-top thing had yeah-yeah-ed itself out. What South didn't realize back then was that the Fab Four hysteria wasn't a fad but the future. The big band music he treasured may have seemed as if it was halfway to international success but in truth it was halfway to pasture. Nevertheless, at the time, South ran the most explosive British big band since Ted Heath.

Fortunately for us, the U.K.'s R&B Records has released Harry South: Further South, a four-CD boxed set that documents South's live broadcast recordings on the BBC from 1960 to 1967. If you dig the two American bands mentioned above—sophisticated swing with a Count Basie punch and tiger soloists—the South box is a feast. In addition to the Harry South Big Band tracks, which make up the bulk of the set, there also are live recordings by South on piano in the Dick Morrissey Quartet. [Photo above, from left, of Harry South and Georgie Fame]

Culled from South's own tape archive along with previously unissued material, the box includes several surprises. In addition to strong arrangements and originals such as The Goblin, Pancho and the Sound of Seventeen, there also are 10 tracks by vocalist Georgie Fame in 1965, including three Basie tunes—Down for the Count, Li'l Darlin' and Little Pony. The box's sound overall is good enough (it's live, after all), and the set includes a 28-page booklet with detailed notes. [Photo of Harry South above at the top]

Once rock and soul's invasion of the music landscape was complete in the late 1960s, South traded in his dream of a modern big-band Shangri-La for a more practical career: He composed, arranged and conducted the themes to some of British TV's most popular dramas. But to South's credit, during the years he imagined that jazz orchestras would conquer the word, he led a hair-raising example of what that kingdom might have sounded like.

Harry South died in 1990.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Harry South: Further South (R&B Records) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's South's The Goblin in 1960...

The Goblin

Here's Save Your Love for Me in 1965...

Save Your Love for Me

Here's Georgie Fame singing Little Pony with the Harry South Big Band in 1965...

Little Pony

And here's You Know I Care in 1967, with a spectacular tenor saxophone solo by Tubby Hayes...

You Know I Care