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Limelight PHCE-6001
1967
*Does not have Chuck Mangione on this song. Instead, it features Lee Morgan or Freddie Hubbard
Liner Notes
The jazzman draws on music of every age and type
for his inspiration and improvisation. He is limited only by his
imagination. So it appears that Art Blakey has
been reading the music trade papers and noting what's happening
up there on the single record charts. And what's happening is
simply this... Sam & Dave, Jimmy Smith, The Lovin' Spoonful, and
like that. The sound that's happening today has a
fierce beat, usually a firm base of loping electric organ, and
an out-front guitar that seems to take the group where it's
headed. Horns are fine, if they hang in with the right
stridency. So, what Art Blakey has done is, as
usual, dig what's happening, and then put it all into his own
personal bag, the one with the hickory rim-shot sticks.
The range is wide, indeed. It takes Art from the British TV
scene, with Secret Agent Man, theme song of the fine show
that was, alas, shot down after one gas of a season. There
there's a jazzed-up jazz performance of a tune that originally
came from jazz and went through all the changes to emerge a pop
hit, Got My Mojo Working. Plus, a large helping of the
chart toppers, the songs young America is frugging to: along
with a salute to one of the great Broadway musicals of recent
years, "Mame." Who plays what and where here
isn't so important as the fact that it's Blakey turning his hand
to a survey of the pop scene today. And if the tongue
occasionally slips into the cheek, let it happen. You don't see
The Lovin' Spoonful taking themselves seriously all over the
place except on deposit day at their neighborhood bank. It's a
Pop, Op, comic book world we live in, anyway. And who's
counting? Just note, in passing, the way Art
falls into a swinging groove on such easy-goers as Mame
and Day Dream, among others. And also note the tough
guitar of Grant Green and the appropriately raunchy tenor sax of
Frank Mitchell. Whistle a bar or two of any of
these and find yourself looked on with new respect by your
inferiors (in age, or course, in age). It's almost enough
to start you growing skin blemishes all over again. Or whatever
that was 'way back then. Notes by Dom
Cerulli, 1967 |
