Straight Up - Harold Vick

Straight Up

Straight Up
Harold Vick
Produced by Brad McCuen
Recorded in RCA Victor's Studio B, New York City
Recording Engineer: Don Miller
RCA Victor LPM-3761
1967

Personnel:

Harold Vick: Leader, Tenor Sax, Soprano Sax & Flute
Virgil Jones: Trumpet
Al Dailey: Piano
Warren Chiasson: Vibes
Everett Barksdale: Guitar (Performs on Like A Breath Of Spring, Lonely Girl and Straight Up
Walter Booker: Bass
Hugh Walker: Drums

From the back cover: When Harold Vick was a young boy his ambition went in two directions. Either he would become a professional basketball player or a professional musician. As he grew up he attained six feet four inches, the height that helps an aspiring basketball player, and he also had talent, evidenced by his winning an award in the sport while at college. At the same time he was developing the skills to be a musician. Again, he had the talent to go with it.

Aptitude must be present, but in the case of some musicians it receives an early chance to show itself. As a child in Rocky Mount, North Carolina (he was born there on April 3, 1936), Vick heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby on his grandmother's Gramophone. By the time he was twelve Harold was trying to stay up late and listen to Symphony Sid, whose program of music beamed pretty strongly from New York on a clear night. At the same age his grandmother also began taking him to the "June Germans," annual dances held in a huge tobacco warehouse. These affairs would last, in Vick's words, "from dusk to dawn" and feature several bands, including names like Basie, Lunceford, Calloway and Millinder. The flash, sound and style attracted Vick. "I always found a spot near the reed section and there I would stay all night," he remembers.

It was no wonder that the twelve-year-old Harold made a $15 down payment on a $90 used clarinet. As he tells it: "The fifteen dollars were my life savings and the payment emptied my piggy bank. My grandparents seeing that my interest in music was genuine, finished buying the clarinet for me."

While still in junior high school Vick became a member of the high school band, playing his first concert at the age of thirteen. He had taken piano lessons for a brief period in his childhood, but it wasn't until he came under the tutelage of Charles Woods, a reed teacher, that he began studying in earnest. Vick says that his greatest influence was a cousin, pianist Thomas Cofield, who taught him "about the construction of songs and about chords." Another shaper of his musical mind was the late Prince Robinson, a star tenor saxophonist-clarinetist with McKinney's Cotton Pickers from 1927 to 1934. Then there was Harold's mother who, when he visited her in New York during summer vacations, played for him the records of Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. When he returned to North Carolina, she would send him records of his favorites, virtually impossible to acquire in Rocky Mount.

When Vick as fifteen he received a tenor saxophone for Christmas, and in seven months he was playing weekend jobs. After high school he entered Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he studied psychology and sociology. Although he knew, after two years, that music was to be his life, he decided to finish his liberal arts education before devoting himself fully to his chosen profession. Until his graduation in 1958. Harold helped support himself by working in the house band at the Howard Theater under former Ellington saxophonist Rick Henderson. There he was able to play with pros and absorb the kind of varied experiences that is invaluable to the young musician.

After graduation Vick began working with a series of bands which used to be called rhythm and blues. First he was with Red Prysock, then Paul Williams, Ruth Brown and Lloyd Price. In 1960 he left Price, came to New York, and gigged with Howard McGhee and Philly Joe Jones. Then he became part of organist Jack McDuff's group for several years. Recently he has appeared with the quartet of pianist Walter Bishop, Jr., and in a big band led by pianist Duke Pearson. Most important, however, has been his emergence as a leader with The Caribbean Suite (RCA Victor, LPM/LSP-3677).

Through the years, some of Vick's preferred saxophonists have been Lester Young, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons and John Coltrane. He credits Miles Davis' former tenorman George Coleman with helping his approach. From this list you can get an idea of Harold's playing attitude. It is modern, but within a tradition that stands for melodic improvisation and that forward thrust known as swing. It has a relaxed, unhurried, unhurried quality that is decidedly very easy listening.

Vick's associates in this album are, like himself, young, accomplished jazzmen who have not made their full mark but are beginning to be heard. Trumpeter Virgil Jones has worked with Lionel Hampton and recorded with Milt Jackson and Roland Kirk. Vibist Warren Chiasson played with George Shearing and also has led his own trio at the Five Spot. Pianist Al Dailey has been a member of Art Farmer's group for the past year or so, as has bassist Walter Booker, who previously worked with Sonny Rollins. Hugh Walker, from Oklahoma, has been free-lancing in New York since coming here in 1966. Guitarist Everett Barksdale, heard on Lonely Girl and Like a Breath of Spring, is the only real veteran present. Once an integral part of the Art Tatum trio, he has been on staff at the American Broadcasting Company for quite a while. – Ira Gitler

If I Should Lose You
Like A Breath Of Spring (Bossa)
Gone With The Wind
Straight Up
We'll Be Together Soon
Lonely Girl
A Rose For Wary (Bossa)
Flamingo
Winter Blossom