Houston Person corner

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I can't believe Houston Person hasn't got his own general corner here. Well, he has now.

I was listening to 'All soul' earlier and noticed one track was by Houston himself (he hasn't written many tunes) and that the credits read 'H S Person'.

So let's start by asking what Houston's middle name is? Anyone know?

MG

[Dan Gould]

No idea but finally a corner 'round these parts I am happy to stand in.

I just recently got to thinking that once upon a time, a new CD from Houston Person, Eric Alexander, Scott Hamilton were all 'must haves' for me.

Now, its only Houston. There may be a superficial similarity across his Highnote releases but there is such magisterial mastery of the form, his horn and so much soul on top of it all that I have no hesitancy to get 'yet another' Person album, and I can't say that at all about EA, and while I always consider new Hamilton releases, I don't seem to pull the trigger anymore.

[CJ Shearn]

Houston is a great cat, I've seen him live twice and he is a gracious human being.

[David Gitin]

He'll be on "The Jazz Cruise" (Caribbean, leaves from Ft. Lauderdale, for one week in January).

[Ted O'Reilly]

A "real jazz" portion of the somewhat underwhelming Toronto Jazz Festival is a series I'll have the pleasure of introducing shortly, and it features Houston Person smack dab in the middle.

On Monday June 24, the hosting Canadian Jazz Quartet (Gary Benson, gtr; Frank Wright, vibes; Duncan Hopkins, bass and drummer Don Vickery) will welcome Harry Allen. On Tuesday, it's Ken Peplowski, Houston on the Wednesday, Randy Sandke on Thursday and this particular run will have Allan Vache on Friday the 28th.

They'll be at the Home Smith Bar of the elegant Old Mill Inn in Toronto. More information at http://torontojazz.com/content/home-smith-bar-old-mill-inn

[danasgoodstuff]

How is HP's Just Between Friends with Ron Carter? I like their previous duo recording, any thing with HP sauce is good to me, hey there's an album title/cover...

[Dan Gould]

:tup

Definitely a keeper.

[jlhoots]

Of recent ones, I like Naturally on High Note with Walton, Drummond & Nash.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've got to admit that I haven't bought a Houston Person album since 'All soul'. I keep meaning to, but...

Got everything earlier under his own name and a lot of sideman stuff, but...

Better get back in the groove. Wish HighNote stuff was available as downloads, as I'm running low on shelf space.

MG

[John Tapscott]

Of recent ones, I like Naturally on High Note with Walton, Drummond & Nash.

Listened to this one a couple of times this week in my car. It's a good one. You don't need to check the notes to tell that it was recorded at Van Gelder's.

Also liked the duo record with Bill Charlap.

Edited June 15, 2013 by John Tapscott

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

These three albums, and the story behind them, that Bob Porter told me, are one of the things I like best about Houston Person.

The two Mercury albums were intended, by Mercury, to follow up, and cash in on, Houston’s success with 'Get outa my way', and the single taken from it, 'Disco sax', on Westbound – both the album and the single made the R&B charts. So, based on sales assumptions, Mercury set a budget for the two albums at $35,000 each. Remember this was mid-seventies money.

Houston negotiated that he, not some Mercury employee, should produce the albums. And he brought in each project for about $7,000 – the rest, of course, about $55,000, was his artist’s pay!

The albums are what you’d expect – competently played disco, complete with swirling strings and backing vocalists and sloppy tunes like 'I write the songs'. But on 'Harmony', Houston put in something for himself – a great eleven and a half minute funky version of Fela Kuti’s 'I no get eye for back', which sounds great as an instrumental, with a big band pumping behind HP. In early 1977, how hip was that! Houston, I’ve been told by more than one source, has a record collection that would put most of ours to shame. The LP has a gently surrealistic cover featuring Houston’s teenage daughter in a swimming costume.

What's interesting is that, in managing the projects at a fifth of the budgeted cost, Houston didn't skimp on contemporary production values. 'Pure pleasure' has 16 additional musicians and 3 background singers (including Patti Austin, who probably wasn't cheap). 'Harmony' has 21 musicians plus 3 singers. It illustrates the motto I heard from ther owner of a record shop and company in The Gambia - 'It's easy to make money in the music business - all you have to know is what to do and how to do it.' Small wonder Joe Fields almost immediately started using Houston as a producer as well as a player.

MG

[robertoart]

Are they better disco/funk than Grant Green's The Main Attraction, MG?

Would that have been a better album if HP had produced it 'his way'?

[robertoart]

And of course..this one...

almost the end of an era in a way. And an album I appreciate more and more with the passing of time.

Especially with the extra 'non album' tracks like 'Lester Leaps In'. But Angel Eyes is a beautiful performance too. Plus many others.

[CJ Shearn]

He does have a record collection that is quite impressive! He told me about it after one of the two times I saw him.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Are they better disco/funk than Grant Green's The Main Attraction, MG?

Would that have been a better album if HP had produced it 'his way'?

Yes, in my view. 'Main attraction' was one of those things where a mechanical groove was greated, over which the soloists played on another day. I know that's true and you can tell by listening. I DON'T know it's not also true of the two Person Mercury albums, but I can't tell by listening. And anyway, 'I no get eye for back' is classic HP at his best.

I can't answer the second question. But I can't remember any recording HP did in which Creed Taylor was in any way involved. Creed was a very clever record producer and very keyed into what would sell (though he spent money like water, and much faster than it was coming in the door). To me, Houston as a producer is much more keyed into the music and the musicians. So I doubt if he would even have tried to produce an album like 'The main attraction'. GG's 'Easy', though nothing to do with HP, is more like something that Houston might have done with GG in the late seventies, had GG lived. Or so it seems to me.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Are they better disco/funk than Grant Green's The Main Attraction, MG?

Would that have been a better album if HP had produced it 'his way'?

Yes, in my view. 'Main attraction' was one of those things where a mechanical groove was greated, over which the soloists played on another day. I know that's true and you can tell by listening. I DON'T know it's not also true of the two Person Mercury albums, but I can't tell by listening. And anyway, 'I no get eye for back' is classic HP at his best.

I can't answer the second question. But I can't remember any recording HP did in which Creed Taylor was in any way involved. Creed was a very clever record producer and very keyed into what would sell (though he spent money like water, and much faster than it was coming in the door). To me, Houston as a producer is much more keyed into the music and the musicians. So I doubt if he would even have tried to produce an album like 'The main attraction'. GG's 'Easy', though nothing to do with HP, is more like something that Houston might have done with GG in the late seventies, had GG lived. Or so it seems to me.

MG

Wrong again! Houston made two albums for Greene Street - one with Les McCann, the other with Roger Kellaway - which were produced by Creed Taylor. I haven't heard the one with Kellaway - 'Creation' - but 'Road warriors' in part justifies my remarks about HP's and CT's incompatibility; certainly on the title track, though the rest isn't too bad.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I thought I'd look out a leader discography of Houston. A complete discography would include hundreds of albums for Joe Fields' labels (and a good few Japanese ones) on which he'd been producer and tenor player and I really can't be asked.

Even as a leader/co-leader he's done 63 and not finished yet. OK, he's not in the Sonny Stitt league, but not too far off JImmy Smith.

Underground soul - Prestige 7491 (6/1966)
Chocomotive - Prestige 7517 (6/1967)
Trust in me - Prestige 7548 (10/1967)
Blue odyssey - Prestige 7566 (3/1968)
Soul dance - Prestige 7621 (11/1968)
Goodness - Prestige 7678 (8/1969)
Truth - Prestige 7767 (2/1970)
Person to Person - Prestige 10003 (10/1970)
Houston express - Prestige 10017 (4/1971)
Island episode - Prestige 11007 (4/1971&7/1973)
Broken windows, empty hallways - Prestige 10044 (5/1972)
Sweet buns & barbecue - Prestige 10055 (9&11/1972)
The real thing - Eastbound 9010 (3/1973)
Houston Person '75 - Eastbound 9011 (Early 1974)
Get outa my way - Westbound 213 (1975)
Stolen sweets - Muse 5110 (4/1976)
The big horn - Muse 5136 (5/1976)
Pure pleasure - Mercury SRM-1-1104 (6/1976)
Harmony - Mercury SRM-1-1151 (3/1977)
Wildflower - Muse 5161 (9/1977)
The nearness of you - Muse 5178 (11/1977)
The gospel soul of Houston Person - Savoy 14471 (C1978)
Don't misunderstand (with Etta Jones) - HighNote 7173 (1980)
Suspicions - Muse 5199 (4/1980)
Very personal - Muse 5231 (8/1980)
Heavy juice - Muse 5260 (6/1982)
Suffield Gothic (with Ran Blake) - Soul Note (1984)
Road warriors (with Les McCann) - Greene Street 2002 (5/1984)
Creation (with Roger Kellaway) - Greene Street 2003 (7&8/1984)
Always on my mind - Muse 5289 (9/1985)
It's talk of the town - Muse 5331 (1/1987)
Basics - Muse 5344 (10/1987)
We owe it all to love - Baseline (UK) 001 (9/1988)
Somethin in common (with ROn Carter) - Muse 5376 (2/1989)
The party - Muse 5451 (11/1989)
Nows the time (with ROn Carter) - Muse 5421 (1/1990)
Just friends (with Buddy Tate & Nat Simpkins) - Muse 5418 (2/1990)
A night in Roppungi (with Etta Jones) - All Art (J) KICJ205 (3/1990)
Why not - Muse 5433 (10/1990)
The lion and his pride - Muse 5480 (9/1991)
Christmas with Houston Person & friends - Muse 5530 (7&8/1994)
Horn to horn (with Teddy Edwards) - Muse 5540 (12/1994)
ESPM the reunion (with Charles Earland, Mel Sparks & Idris Muhammad) - Nectar 98002 (5/1996)
Close encounters (with Teddy Edwards) - HighNote 7002 (11/1996)
Person-ified - HighNote 7004 (11/1996)
Opening round - Savant 2005 (2/1997)
My romance - HighNote 7033 (6/1998)
Soft lights - HighNote 7049 (4/1999)
in a sentimental mood - HighNote 7060 (1/2000)
Together at Christmas (with Etta Jones) - HighNote 7058 (3/2000)
Dialogues (with ROn Carter) - HighNote 7072 (8/2000)
Blue velvet - HighNote 7090 (7/2001)
Sentimental journey - HighNote 7101 (5/2002)
Social call - HighNote 7115 (5/2003)
To Etta with love - HighNote 7127 (1/2004)
All soul - HighNote 7146 (6/2005)
You taught my heart to sing (with Bill Charlap) - HighNote 7134 (8/2004)
Thinking of you - HighNote 7177 (5/2007)
Just between friends (with Ron Carter) HighNote 7188 (10/2005)
Mellow - HighNote 7206 (6/2009)
Moment to moment - HighNote 7217 (6/2010)
So nice - HighNote 7229 (2011)
Naturally - HighNote 7245 (2012)

MG

[mjzee]

The little I've heard of Person, he strikes me as just a run-of-the-mill tenorist; nothing striking or really individual. I once saw him in a duet with Ron Carter, just didn't do much for me. Other than his ubiquity, what is there to recommend about his playing? It strikes me as jazz comfort food. Could you identify his playing in a blindfold test?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Generally, I think. It's his sound, which is big and gritty, even on ballads, that particularly gets me, rather than what he actually plays. I don't care much about the notes people play, so long as they have a sound that speaks to me - a big sound, of course. Lots of musicians don't go beyond the usual kind of music that's around at the time but their sound is what engages popular interest - Gene Ammons, for example, or Willis Jackson or Grant Green.

MG

[clifford_thornton]

Only Person I have is Chocomotive, but it's a strong date.

[Peter Friedman]

The little I've heard of Person, he strikes me as just a run-of-the-mill tenorist; nothing striking or really individual. I once saw him in a duet with Ron Carter, just didn't do much for me. Other than his ubiquity, what is there to recommend about his playing? It strikes me as jazz comfort food. Could you identify his playing in a blindfold test?

I have seen / heard Houston Person live many many times. He plays ballads beautifully. That big round sound can grabs me in a good way.

He is also a terrific blues player. he can get greasy and often is able to bring a large smile to my face.

On up tempo tunes, there are many other (living) tenor players I prefer, but when he comes ballads and blues he is (in my opinion, one of the best.

[Dan Gould]

The little I've heard of Person, he strikes me as just a run-of-the-mill tenorist; nothing striking or really individual. I once saw him in a duet with Ron Carter, just didn't do much for me. Other than his ubiquity, what is there to recommend about his playing? It strikes me as jazz comfort food. Could you identify his playing in a blindfold test?

I'd second what MG and Peter said, and add that I think HP has a marvelous affinity for the Songbook.

I honestly can't imagine describing him as run of the mill or not especially individual. But as they say, mileage may vary.

I like that I can play his Highnote releases with guests who are not jazz fans but know some standard tunes and will enjoy the 'background' music while if I want to listen I have plenty to dig too.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Could you identify his playing in a blindfold test?

Thinking about this on the bus today, I thought it was an interesting, but false, question. Looking back at some of the BFTs I can remember participating in, and in which I actually recognised people (rather than the tune, from which I was able to do a bit of detective work), I suspect the fact that I could identify the Gerald Wilson and Ray Charles orchestras but consistently failed to identify Ellington and Basie material, or fingering Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Ed Pazant (on baritone, not his usual tenor) and Teddy Edwards but being unable to identify McLean, Mobley or Rollins (except Harold 'Pop Pop' Rollins) says more about me than about the players' individuality or 'recognisability'. (Of course, Harold 'Pop Pop' Rollins hasn't appeared on the BFT )

(Yet.)

MG

[robertoart]

Yeh, I mightn't be able to identify HP on a blindfold test unless I could deduce from the sidemen or timeframe or whatever. But I reckon I could identify his sound as that of a great player. You just can't fake the funk.

Generic players of a different generation rarely have the big sound projection of the older guys.

[Guy Berger]

Some friends and I saw Houston and his quartet last night. Very good, as you would expect. My wife was amused by the fact that he played "The Way We Were".