Hang On Ramsey! - Ramsey Lewis

 

Billy Boy

Hang On Ramsey!

The Ramsey Lewis Trio

Recorded: October 14-17, 1965 at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California

Engineer: Reice Hamel

Album Production & Supervision: Esmond Edwards

Cover Photo: Raimondo Borea

Cover Design: Esmond Edwards

Cadet LP-761

Ramsey Lewis - Piano

Eldee Young - Bass

Red Holt - Drums

From the back cover: "It's important to anyone's life and career," says Ramsey Lewis, "to see where you've been, to know where are are, and to have a good idea where you're going."

These remarks were made between sets at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Calif., during one of the most phenomenally successful engagements ever undertaken there since the club inaugurated its jazz policy more than sixteen years ago.

Where Ramsey Lewis has been, and where Red Holt and Eldee Young have been with him, is a matter of record, an impressive record that moved slowly and irreversibly upward, yet never quite hit the peak that was The In Crowd until mid-1965, almost nine years after the group was organized. The interim years were devoted to the usual rounds, most often in night clubs; included was an excursion that took him to Birdland in 1959.

Even in those days, a few of the critics were predicting that with the right break the Ramsey Lewis Trio could duplicate the popular success of Shearing, Brubeck and Garner. As far back as 1961, I wrote in a Down Beat record review: "Lewis today is moving toward the stage at which al the critics will put him down while the big spenders will take him up. If he's bowing to Basin Street West, good luck to him; he'll do great, with no help (and no need of help) from us experts."

The only thing wrong about that prediction was its prematurity. Still, Ramsey Lewis can not feel that fate has been unduly harsh. He celebrated his thirtieth birthday on May 27, 1965 and within weeks The In Crowd had made its way onto the charts.

The excitement generated by the Lewis trio is not only a stimulating spectacle to observe; it is also an object lesson in how to combine appealing musicianship with deft, discreet showmanship.

Watching the album being taped at The Lighthouse, I was impressed both by the attentiveness of the crowd and by the spread of its age range. As Ramsey pointed out, "Around 75% or our crowd is professional people– doctors, lawyers, dentists, schoolteachers – and the rest is the college and high school age group. Looks like we've got 'em all tonight."

And indeed they had, If Esmond Edwards had not sneaked me in by a rear door, I would never have made it into the club that night. The Lighthouse is situated near the end of a street that dead-ends virally on the Pacific Ocean. As I arrived there, just before the first set began, there was a line of Lewis fans stretching all the way to the corner and around it.

Most of them never got in. The Lewis engagement was a time of mixed emotions for John Levine, owner of the club, and Howard Rumsey, the musical director who inaugurated its jazz policy in 1949. The crowds that headed for the spot nightly were a delight to their eyes; but at the end of every set, the patient line outside budged hardly at all. "How do I get a turnover?" moaned Levine. "the customers won't leave!"

And that was how it went all evening. Though Ramsey would play the In Crowd during every set, thinking that this was what people had come to hear, they still remained firmly lodged in their seats. Standing in a corner by the bar – needless to say, there wasn't a seat in the house – I began to envy Esmond, who had a better view than I. He was outside, in the mobile recording truck, watching the show via closed circuit television. For a while I joined him there, catching a more exact idea of the sound exactly as it would turn out on th e record.

The programming of this set, which comprises the best takes of the best tunes played during four nights of recording, its representative of the variety and contrast of the trio's choice of selections. It was interesting, and indeed gratifying to observe that the enthusiasts who had portably come to hear The In Crowed sat still attentively and applauded enthusiastically for a pretty ballad, or an Ellington standard swinger like Satin Doll, or a Nellie Lutcher up-blues favorite of the 1940s like Real Gone Guy. The long workout of Billy Boy and Hi-Heel Sneakers was an especially impressive illustration of the trio's capacity for lending new interest to long-familiar material.

Ramsey Lewis today can feel, with some security, that the goals at which he aimed are being accomplished. There he has been, as noted above, is part of the annals of jazz; where he is going can hardly be anywhere but onward and upward; and as to where he is today, one hardly needs any more evidence than can be drawn from the vitality, intensity and variety of this recored evening a The Lighthouse. – Leonard Feather

A Hard Day's Night

All My Love Belongs To You

He's A Real Gone Guy

And I Love Her

Movin' Easy

Billy Boy

Hi-Heel Sneakers

The More I See You

Satin Doll

Hand On Snoopy