The Jazz School

 

Evening Lights

The Jazz School

Featuring Joe Gordon (Trumpet), Art Mardigan (Drums), Paul Gonsalves (Tenor Sax) & Clark Terry (Trumpet)

Photo: Reed Hecht

Jazz Wing MGW-60002

Wind a subsidiary or Mercury Record Corporation, Chicago, Illinois

1955

From the back cover: There are sixteen students in this class of the Jazz School; sixteen young men whose grades are impeccable, who's studies have clearly qualified them for a successful and distinguished career.

At the head of the class for the first four exercises is a member of the drums corps, a familiar figure by the band or Arthur Mardigan.

Art is a native Detroiter, born in December, 1923 and a name band musician since the age of nineteen, when he joined Tommy Reynolds. After Army service in 1943-44 he spent a year with Georgie Auld's group, then went home to Detroit for a while before entering the New York scene, where he was a part of many noteworthy 52nd Street combos under the leadership of Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Allen Eager and Kai Winding. In addition, Art worked off and on with Woody Herman and Elliot Lawrence. In 1954, when Pete Rugolo came east to form a band for a tour, Art was a cornerstone of that all-star ensemble. Not long ago he was heard on an EmArcy LP dis with Ball de Arango.

Featured with Art on his four performances here are Don Joseph, a cornetist who's been a familiar figure around New York Jazz circles for several years; Milt Gold, a trombonist who has seen service with such name bands as Stan Kenton's and Glade Thornhill's and Al Cohn, the tenor saxophonist and arranger who has been rising rapidly to jazz eminence in the past year. (Al wrote Moroccan Blues for this session.) Heard with Mardigan in the rhythm section are John Williams, the 25-year-old pianist from Windsor, Vermont, best known for his work with Stan Getz and Teddy Kotick, at 27-year-old bass man who has been prominent on the New York scene with Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, Buddy De Franco and a flock of other combos.

These students guide their class through four exercises that require little or no homework; the welcome strains of I've Found A New Baby (with Williams comping happily through Cohn's swinging solo chorus); the usual Milt Gold trombone work and the unexpected combination of ancient and modern melodic ideas by Joseph on Moroccan Blues; the pensive swing and easy-riding tenor work on Old Gold, and the happy, west-coast-style theme and solos on Golden Touch.

Class dismissed.

A new group moves in: at the head of the class is Paul Gonsalves, tenor saxophonist from Brockton, Massachusetts. Raised in Pawtucket, R.I., Paul started his musical life as a guitarist at the age of sixteen, in 1936; later, switching to tenor saxophone, he became popular as a featured member of the Tabby Lewis orchestra, a well known Boston group, with which he made his record debut.

A three-year hitch in the Army, from 1942 to '45, was followed by a stint in the Count Basie orchestra, and a brief fling in Dizzy Gillespie's final big band. Then, early in 1951, Paul joined the great Duke Ellington orchestra, of which, except for a few weeks in Tommy Dorsey's band in 1953, he has been member ever since.

Paul's colleagues on this, his first record session under his own leadership, include Clark Terry, another great Ellintonian of several years standing and sitting; Porter Gilbert, baritone saxophonist, who worked briefly on alto with Ellington in 1951; Junior Mance, a gifted 27-year-old pianist from Chicago, best known for the fine work he has done as Dinah Washington's accompanist; Eugene Miller on drums; and the inimitable, poll-winning bassist of erstwhile Woody Herman fame, Greig Stewart "Chubby" Jackson.

Paul, Clark, Junior and Cubby share the spotlight in the famous Ellington standard It Don't Mean A Thing, and again in a catchy blues riff theme, Take Nine. On the other two numbers Paul takes over for two uninterrupted performance of a pari of great standard tunes, Matt Dennis' Everything Happens To Me and the Dorothy Fields-Jimmy McHugh favorite Don't Blame Me. Both the latter numbers, with their solo cadenza endings, are tenor saxophone solos in the classic jazz tradition along lines established in the 1930's by Coleman Hawkins and later followed by Don Byas. Paul's own style reflects the influences mainly of Byas and Ben Westster.

... dismissed ...

Time now for graduation exercises. The class is headed by Joseph Henry Gordon, another brilliant New Englander on the modern jazz scene. Born in 1928 in Boston, Joe worked as a sandwich boy on the Boston-Albany railroad as recently as 1947, but later in that same year made his professional bow with his own combo at Boston's Savoy Ballroom, where the above-named Sabby Lewis was a frequent favorite. Joe also worked as a sideman with Abby, as well as with a variety of other gourds, from Georgie Auld to Charlie Mariano, from Charlie Parker to Lionel Hampton.

Heard with Joe on these sides are Charlie Rouse, a tenor sax and from Washington, D.C., who was with Duke Ellington in 1949-'50; Junior Mance, reappearing on piano; Jimmy Schenck on bass; and the pride of Pittsburgh, winner of the 1953 New Star award in the critics' poll, Art Blakey on drums.

With this personnel, Joe carries his handsome horn through these impressive performances of Evening Lights and Body And Soul, pausing only for sixteen bars of tenor on the former and of piano on the latter. Both numbers are eloquent demonstrations of his inventive musicianship and technical facility.

So these are the men you will meet in the Jazz School. It seems superfluous to point out that every last man of these sixteen students has graduated, as he deserves to, summa cum laude.

From Billboard - December 31, 1955: A modern jazz sampler that features three different ensembles. Outstanding in the Mardigan sextet is tenor-man Al Cohn. Paul Gonsalves, the fine Ellinton tenor soloist, gets his principal support from trumpeter Clark Terry. The variety of talent and ideas exposed here make for an interesting (and readily marketable program).

I've Found A New Baby

Moroccan Blues

Old Gold

Golden Touch

Evening Lights

It Don't Mean A Thing

Take Nine

Everything Happens To Me

Don't Blame Me

Body And Soul