It's About Time - Joe Morello

It's About Time (LSP-2486)

It's About Time
Joe Morello With His Sextet and Orchestra
For The First Time On His Own –
The Drummer Other Drummers Listen To
(And The Jazz Poll Voters Vote For)
Arrangements by Phil Woods and Manny Albas
Featuring Phil Woods, Alto Sax and Bary Burton, Vibraphone
Produced by George Avakian
Recorded in Webster Hall and RCA Victor's Studio A, New York City
Recording Engineer: Ernie Oelrich
RCA Victor LSP-2486 & LPM-2486
1962

From the back cover: About Joe Morello by Marian McPartland

Joe Morello is a drummer's drummer. As Long as I have known him, which is close to ten years (when he first came to New York and sat in with me at the Hickory House in 1952), he has always been surrounded by drummers who came from all over to listen to him play, to talk to him, to work out or to study his amazing technique at close range. Joe joined my trio in 1953, and it was always interesting to me to see how much time he devoted to the study of the drums, even to practicing every spare minute between sets. He was absolutely fanatical about this, and at times there seemed to be a kind of controlled fury in his playing – sort of a fierceness which belies the appearance of this quiet, soft-spoken guy. Only when he plays does he reveal some of the inner conflict and frustrations that have shaped and directed him in his restless drive for perfection.

Joe was a child prodigy on the violin and can play piano quite well. He is a sentimental person who thinks deeply, who loves to daydream and to philosophize while listening to music – every kind of music. His musical tastes run all the way from Casals to Sinatra to Red River Valley. He is a complex person; on one hand, gentle, quiet and imaginative; then, in the next instant, a complete extrovert, doing impressions of his friends and laughing like a schoolboy; then again he becomes remote, moody, shut off from everybody in his own self-contained little world.

In the past few years Joe has traveled all over the world with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. He is now a seasoned performer, and shows the results and benefits of working with Dave. He has made a great reputation, and this is revealed in a different approach to his solos. His musical ideas run along new lines; he uses his fantastic technique to better effect than ever, and he seems to have broadened his scope, not only in his playing but in various little intangible ways – in his increased confidence in a certain gregariousness he never used to have. Yet, he is humble and at time almost disbelieving of his success. He has unquestionably made a great contribution to the Brubeck group, and I am sure that Dave would be among the first to agree that the success of tunes like Take Five, the Paul Desmond composition which put the Quartet on the nation's best-selling charts, is in some measure due to Joe's unique conception of unusual time signatures and his ability to play them interestingly.

The time is right for Joe, now one of the most illustrious sidemen in jazz, to record for the first time as a leader (although, of course, in public he is still the drummer of the Brubeck Quartet). For Joe, this has a very special meaning. It is not just on opportunity to perform with a hand-picked group of musicians, including his great friend Phil Woods as saxophonist and arranger. This album represents the fulfillment of a long-expressed desire which grew out of his first tentative experiments, as a boy, with a pair of brushes on the kitchen table in his home in Springfield, Massachusetts.

I believe that Joe was born to be a brilliant musician. This album will justify and renew the faith he has in himself, as well as the high praise and respect he has received from musicians all over the world. In discussing Joe recently, Buddy Rich called him "the best of the newer drummers; he has tremendous technique, and he is the only one to get a musical sound out of the drums."

The tunes and arrangements by Manny Album and Phil Woods give him ample scope to express himself – whether with sticks on a hard-swinging, white-hot, uptempo tune such as Just In Time; or Every Time We Say Goodbye. In Joe Morello's playing you can hear the fire, the relentless drive, the gentleness, and the humor that is in him, and he has surrounded himself with some of the best musicians there are, to help him make this – his first album on his own – great.

Also from the back cover: About This Album by George Avakian

A basic small combo is heard throughout the album, with a brass ensemble added for four numbers (I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Every Time We Say Goodbye, Time On My Hands and It's About Time). Manny Albam, arranger and conductor for these numbers, has integrated the combo so that there is frequently a concerto gross quality to the sound of the ensemble.

Phil Woods, alto saxophonist throughout this set, is the arranger of five of the six remaining selections. Completing the album is a trio improvisation (Fatha Time) by pianist John Bunch, bassist Gene Cherico and Joe.

Joe's approach, in assembling the musicians and asking Manny and Phil to write for them, was that the music must, at all times, swing. There was no attempt to use complex rhythms for their own sakes. The musicians, of course, had to be chosen with care. The principle soloists – Woods, Bunch and vibraphonist Gary Burton – are strong "blowers." They are soloists of the type who dig in and go.

Woods, the best-known soloist; is one of the finest saxophonists of the post-bop era. He is a musician whose blazing musical temperament is perceptible even on ballads. Gary Burton is a teen-ager virtuosos who has bowled over seasoned musicians for the last two years and is just beginning to became known. He impressed Chet Atkins, RCA Victor's recording manager in Nashville (and one of the great guitarists of all time), so deeply that Chet promptly signed him. His first RCA Victor album will appear shortly. John Bunch, whose vigorous piano is sprinkled liberally throughout this album, is a youthful veteran of the Benny Goodman, Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson bands, and has also played in the small combos of two of the country's most popular drummers, Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.

From Billboard - March 17, 1962: Morello, who is the star drummer with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, has a wonderfully varied album here. The set switches up to medium to ballad temp on different selections without loss of feeling or concept. The highly facile arrangements are by Phil Woods (who also stars as alto sax soloist) and Manny Albam. Also featured is Gary Burton on vibes. Since the theme of the album is time, each of the track titles, both standard and originals, has the word in the title. "Just In Time," Everytime," Fatha Time" and "Mother Time," are a few of them.

I Didn't Know What Time It Was
Time After Time
Every Time We Say Goodbye
Just In Time
Summertime
Time On My Hands
Mother Time
Fatha Time
It's About Time