Meet The Jazztet - Art Farmer & Benny Golson

 

Mox Nix

Meet The Jazztet

Art Farmer & Benny Golson

Engineer: Tommy Nola

Production: Kay Norton

Supervision: Jack Tracy

Cover Photo taken at Nola Studios by Chuck Stewart

Design: Emmett McBain

Recorded February 6, 9, and 10, 1960 at Nola Studios, New York

Argo LP 664

1960

Art Farmer - Trumpet

Benny Golson - Tenor Saxophone

Curtis Fuller- Trombone

McCoy Tyner - Piano

Addiso Farmer - Bass

Lex Humphries - Drums

Narration on "Killer Joe" by Benny Golson

From the back cover: "This is a musical organization and we want it to sound like that, not like the usual jam session that goes under the name. The jam session can be a wonderful thing, but it's a hell of a thing to try and pull off every night!" That's the way Art Farmer thinks of the aims and ideas of The Jazztet.

"What we're actually trying to do is to get a loose sound the allows each man a chance to say what he has to say musically on his instrument, but still have uniformity and togetherness." That's the way it is for Benny Golson.

The Jazztet, in case you are meeting it for the first time is a musical organization that does not sound like the usual jam session, and in which each man has a chance to say what he has to say, but in which there is still uniformity and togetherness.

It consists of trumpeter Art Farmer, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Addison Farmer, and drummer Lex Humphries. It was in existence only a few months when this LP was made, but it looks like it will be in business for a long, long time to come.

Farmer, born in Iowa in 1928, was raised in Arizona, went to L.A. in 1945, worked with Horace Henderson and others and joined Lionel Hampton in '52 and toured Europe with him. A Down Beat New Star trumpeter, he has recorded extensively under his own name and with Gerry Mulligan, with whom he played last year.

Benny Golson was born in Philadelphia in 1929, attended Howard university, worked with Tadd Dameron, Lionel Hampton, Johnny Hodges, and Earl Bostic. In 1956 he joined Dizzy Gillespie's big bands. He's one of the best known young composers in jazz with several jazz standards (Stablemates is one) already to his credit.

The genesis of The Jazztet goes back to the summer of 1959. "Art had in mind to organize a group and approached me," Golson says, "and I had in mind to get a group and approached him!"

Farmer and Golson are both careful planners and this is reflected in the group. Arrangements are mutually discussed and plotted, and all the rest of the minutia of organizing and routining a band is a community enterprise. In a night club each member of the front line is given a feature number, and it is interesting, in view of their concept of the group as a unit, that even on such tunes the other two men are busy now and again with little backgrounds and fills.

They have deliberately chosen a name that does not include the name of any of the men and they are willing to fight club owners and anyone else for the length of time necessary to put this name across. "Naturally I think the music itself is the important thing," Golson says. "If you're really producing the music, you can call the group anything!" But The Jazztet is what they have elected to call it and it will stick. You can mark it down in your book as one of the groups in jazz that will make it.

The Music

Serenata was a problem. "I had never heard it done in 6/8 and I decided I would try it," Golson says. "At first he couldn't get anything out of the tune," Art says, "until he thought of 6/8."

It Ain't Necessarily So "is a song I've always liked," Benny says. "And I tried to make it as loose as possible. The bridge is the only time we're playing complete ensemble."

Avalon, the old standard, is a tune the band picked by mutual consent. Again it's a Golson arrangement. They picked the tune because of the melody and then took the melody out! "We just started with the solos," Benny says. 

I Remember Clifford is a Golson original. Already a classic of jazz, it is dedicated to the late Clifford Brown. "When I play it," Art says, "I just try to think of what Clifford was to me. I wouldn't want to play like him on the tune because that wouldn't be my idea of him. I just try to say, 'Yes, I do remember Clifford and he was like this.' That's about all there is to it."

Blues March is another Golson original. "It speaks for itself," Benny says. "It's just reminiscent of the marching bands, the old New Orleans marching bands."

It's All Right With Me originated "when Curtis and I were working together, Golson says. "He used to play it all the time and I always thought he played it very well." Art Farmer adds "I think that's one of the classic trombone solos on record. We did two takes and Curits just went though the thing and never let up. On the first take he was playing so fast the rhythm section couldn't keep up with him. He's one of the most important men around on the horn."

Easy Living was the suggestion of the group's manager Kay Norton. "I had always thought of it as a vocal," Benny says. "But once I started playing it I began to like it." Art adds another point regarding this tune: "We want to show Benny's ballad ways."

Mox Nix is Art's tune. "I picked the expression up – it's a German expression, you know – from a girl in Brooklyn," says Farmer. "It means 'never mind, that's all right'."

Park Avenue Petite is another Golson original, one that Benny wrote back in 1954 and had forgotten about until Blue Mitchell asked for some material and Benny brought it out.

Killer Joe started this way. "I just sat down at the piano one day," says Benny, "and started messing away on the two chord progressions – I had about three or four different melodies – and I eliminated the others and decided to use the one I have now. As I was doing it, it made me think of one of these hip cats – standing on the corner."

 – Ralph J. Gleason, syndicated columnist whose column, The Rhythm Section appears in many newspapers

Serenata

It Ain't Necessarily So

Avalon

I Remember Clifford

Blues March

It's All Right With Me

Park Avenue

Mox Nix

Easy Living

Killer Joe