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Oliver Nelson on Prestige


JSngry

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Also in that same issue, in the back where the "educational " stuff was (is?) is an article about how to produce a record, where he would recounted producing that Drum Session, about which it should be noted that it was A3-LP Set in Japan, and about which it could be noted that Nuyorican Soul's "The Nervous Track" consists of massive and masterful reconstructions of samples from that album, and once you've heard both often enough is enriching as hell if you're so inclined.

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2 hours ago, Joe said:

Any opinions of the Nelson / Lou Donaldson collaboration recorded for Argo (ROUGH HOUSE BLUES)?

Or Fantabulous, also on Argo? About to listen to that for the first time in many a moon. (I like all the LD Argos but that's not really germane to this discussion.)

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Generally speaking I prefer earlier Oliver so the Prestige stuff figures highly.  I love Screamin' The Blues, Straight Ahead and a few years ago I found a copy of Nocturne on Moodsville that I like.  The older I get the better those Moodsville records sound. Should I be worried?

 

edit:forgot that I used to own Sound Pieces but traded it in a while back.  I don't dislike it but I found that I really didn't play it and space is an issue so ot went.  I really prefer his smaller group stuff though I recognize his arranging skills in big band.  I liked him when he was still reaching for it.

Edited by six string
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After finding Doug Payne's online discography, "Oliver Nelson On Prestige" has turned out to cover more material than I had imagined. I've had to order three Gene Ammons albums (just to get one session), two more Etta Jones (one of them another larger ensemble record, who knew?) and single dice by Clark Terry and Frank Wess. There are also several items that will probably be found the old fashioned way, by digging in various nooks and crannies, cyber and otherwise.

http://dougpayne.com/on51-66.htm

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1 hour ago, JSngry said:

After finding Doug Payne's online discography, "Oliver Nelson On Prestige" has turned out to cover more material than I had imagined. I've had to order three Gene Ammons albums (just to get one session), two more Etta Jones (one of them another larger ensemble record, who knew?) and single dice by Clark Terry and Frank Wess. There are also several items that will probably be found the old fashioned way, by digging in various nooks and crannies, cyber and otherwise.

http://dougpayne.com/on51-66.htm

Jim - I don't know if you're going to be an Oliver Nelson completest. If so, you need Sax Appeal (VeeJay). Nelson solos iirc on at least one of the Tommy Dean cuts included.

4769922.jpg

Perhaps you have it already.

 

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Think I hsve it maybe? Have to look.

Not looking to become a completist, not really wanting to, not everything with the name attached is golden, by any means. Still, sometimes things happen without intent...

Finding myself getting increasingly WTF?-you over these few choruses:

just enough unexpected notes and accents to create a quiet balanced imbalance, if that makes any sense.

 

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On 5/28/2016 at 7:14 PM, Dan Gould said:

Or Fantabulous, also on Argo? About to listen to that for the first time in many a moon. (I like all the LD Argos but that's not really germane to this discussion.)

Fantabulous is really good, better than I remembered. I hope Jim has this one somewhere in the stack though of course it doesn't fit specifically into the purpose of this thread.

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2 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

and is cursed with a badly out of tune piano. I am amazed Eddie and/or Oliver didn't correct the situation. It was recorded at Universal, a first rate  studio and it should not have happened.

Yes, one of the worst pianos I can recall on a studio date.

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Listened to two more Etta Jones albums made with Nelson's participation, HOLLAR! & From The Heart.

HOLLAR! is a collection of results from 1960-1962 and hangs together as an Etta Jones album very much in the mold of her later Muse dates with Houston Person. Nelson contributes 2-3 solos, and good ones they are, but nothing to really impact the album away from being what it is without him. That distinction falls to a quite boisterous 1962 version of "Nature Boy" with a very aggressive Jerome Richardson that is unlike any other item in the Etta Jones discography of which I'm aware.

From The Heart.is a much more Nelson-impacted affair. Personnel listings to the contrary, there are horns on all but 2(?) cuts, and strings on some of those. The arrangements on this 1962 date are nowhere near as adventurous as those on the previous year's So Warm. That one seemed to be aiming at Sinatra/Riddle Only the Lonely territory and only sometimes/partially made it, with blame going to both singer and arranger...and producer, really.

This one works much better (if not perfectly, there are still moments where the flow goes weird, even though it always getws back on track) because there's a better fit between singer, arranger, and repertoire. Seems to be aimed at the then-current worlds of Dinah Washington & Ray Charles, which fits Jones so much better. Nelson's arrangements still carry some bite, but never become inappropriate for the singer and the target. So Warm is definitely the more interesting record, but From The Heart is definitely the more on-target, all things considered. I had never heard of either (nor of HOLLAR! for that matter) until the last few weeks. All have proven to be interesting additions, although HOLLAR! exclusively as an Etta Jones album.

After hearing these two albums of Nelson backing singers and then going back over some of the other singer's albums he had a hand in, it seems to me that the one singer who got the most advantage out of his backings was, perhaps Ironically, James Brown. Soul On Top is a mostly magnificent album with mostly uncompromising arrangements and completely uncompromised vocals. Would that those elements had always been present in the Nelson's collaborations with singers

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Soul Street  by Jimmy Forrest is one of those uniquely Prestige hodge-podge albums, and half of the cuts involve Nelson.

But not so fast! The title cut is also on Soul Battle CD as a bonus cut, leaving three more tunes with Nelson, these featuring Forrest with an octet backing.

But not so fast! One of those is a cover of "Experiment In Terror" that sounds like it was intended to be a 45, one is a sorta corny, stiffy backbeaty "Just A-Sittin'..." that also sound jukeboxy in intent, both with twangy Mandell Lowe guitar that is not appreciated by these ears in this context. So it appears to have been kind of a drag of a session.

But not so fast! The remaining cut, though, is a TOTALLY groovy take on "Soft Summer Breeze" that leaves me wishing for an entire album of some more of THAT, even if there is the odd clash between Nelson's extended harmonies and Forrest's more more diatonic melodic lines. Not a problem when it all feels this good, no small thanks to the AFAIK one-off Richard Davis/Ed Slaughnessy hookup.

So all in all, a good Jimmy Forrest record, but a frustratingly inessential Oliver Nelson record, made all the more so by the inclusion of a quite frisky outtake of "I Wanna Blow...." from the Prestige Blues Singers album, expertly (contextually and otherwise) arranged by Jerry Valentine.

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Hell, I'm disappointed that Phil replaced Oliver. Even if Phil Woods as Oliver Nelson's lead altoist is one of the more archetypical sounds of 1960's orchestral jazz, it seems to me that Oliver really was a lead altoist at heart, in spirit. Nothing against Phil Woods in that role, I believe I'm on several records that my most supreme respect and regard for him is as a lead altoist, but Oliver had such a unique playing voice that was so in sync with his writing voice...business realities, I suppose.

Have an album apiece by Frank West and Clark Terry to get to, and still waiting for the 3rd of 3 Gene Ammons sides to arrive so I can compile that session. Looking forward to all of that.

Biggest WTF???? discoveries to date have been the two Etta Jones larger ensemble dates. I had NO idea that anything like that had ever happened, especially the first one.

And thanks. I'm having fun doing it.

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I posted a positive rant in favor of the Terry disc a while back and got slammed down because of the material. I learned the "All American" score from Duke's record in the '60s and enjoyed another take on the material - especially for the outstanding performances of Budd Johnson.

 

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1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

I posted a positive rant in favor of the Terry disc a while back and got slammed down because of the material. I learned the "All American" score from Duke's record in the '60s and enjoyed another take on the material - especially for the outstanding performances of Budd Johnson.

 

Got that on your recommendation and love it.

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Got a very delightful surprise today with Frank Wess' The Long Road, a 2-on-1 Prestige offering that combines 1962's Southern Comfort (the Nelson-associated date) with 1963's Yo Ho! etc... that nifty quintet date with Thad & Roy Haynes that for years showed up with a Status sticker on it but lord only knows what kind of label inside. It was an easy enough record to bypass if your were kind of a deadset "modernist" in the 70s, you know, Thad, 1963, Wess, Buddy Catlett, Gildo Mahones, easy enough to think, oh, another "Basie-ites On Vacation" dah-ditdah-DAH date, and, you would be soooo wrong a bout that (as I found out ca. 17979, when my purchase elicited laughs for the funny album title and the sticker, "what kind of shady-grady back-alley gangsterass record is THIS?!?!?!" they all laughed until I sat down to play it...and then, oh yeah, hey fuckers, Roy Haynes, ok? Turns out to be a damn good record, with some BOV to it, but not nearly that much, and ignore it at your peril, everybody came to play, especially Roy Haynes, and, you know, be ready when Roy Haynes comes to play, the band was, you should be too. Badass tunes, no fucking around tempos, Roy Haynes insisting on full engagement by all, yeah, grownman straight ahead jazz, if it was that easy, every jazz record would be this good, and they aren't, so, there you go.

Ok, known quantity with tracks 8-13, but 1-7, all new to me. I had read descriptions that it was a "breezy Latin affair" or words to that effect, so I was expecting pleasant all around, including Oliver's charts, but not too much more, and lo AND behold, this shit is HOT. Mostly Wess, with some Al Aarons (who I always found a little generic, but here it's like, oh, he sounds like the guy on all those 60s Basie records, and then....DUH, right?), a small horn section (Aarons Nelson on tenor & George Barrow on bari, + Wess when called upon, no trombone, and that's a totally different color, especially when Aarons has the lead and it's three saxes underneath), arrangements are, per Nelson's comments in the liners (dig it how Oliver always seemed to be available for liner note input, that's a career strategy for sure!), "functional" because Wess don't like a lot of fuss  behind him when he plays. But without fuss a lot of color and subtlety comes forth. These are the kind of arrangements that sound so easy to write, and, ok, any one section of any one chart, sure, but put them together, write a whole album's worth of charts like this and avoid sounding monochromatic and repetitive, good luck on that project, cash that check when you get it.

Plus, these guys are TIGHT, 3 or 4 horns still needs to play like a section, or at least needs to if you want it to sound like a section and not just everybody playing parts at the same(ish) time. That's cool if you got a blowing session or the like, but when you got charts that actually vary in voicings, colors, and dynamics, no matter how "simple" they are, it needs to be a section. And look, Oliver Nelson, Al Aarons, George Barrow, and Frank Wess (when called upon), you got guys who know how to play section. And in Oliver Nelson, you got a guy who knows how to write for any instrumentation to maximize the sound, so...beautifully functionally great charts, the shit POPS. It's not accidental, it's skills. Hell yeah.

And speaking of maximizing sound...either there is an uncredited second percussionist here or else Osie Johnson was one of the unsung heroes of playing drum kit like he was inside a Latin percussion ensemble and not just playing along with it. I listened as closely as I could to see if there were any giveaways as to what it was, and really, I think it's Osie himself, and if so, this is a record that should be studied by all kit drummers, because lord have mercy, you put most of them together with a conguero, and one (or both) of them is gonna end up forcing their feel on the other, and that does not happen here. Whoever got that to happen is some kind of mystery genius who is owed more thanks than we have time to say right now.

On top of all that, Wess plays his ass off on this session, his tenor getting aggressively nasty on more than a few occasions, his flute, always lovely, especially so. The compositions are all groove-friendly organic, never sounding "adapted", and oh by the way, the last cut was written by Oliver as a feature for George Duvivier and Wess, I guess, didn't mind, because there it is, and damn is it a swell one.

Amply available at prices only a fool could refuse, this ought to be in the Recommendations forum, but let's put it here, because it fits and it's not too crowded in here by now, so you guys get ALL the best available prices.

This:

Frank-Wess-The-Long-Road-1963-FLAC.jpg

Here:

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Road-Frank-Wess/dp/B00004YLK4

Carpe Diem, y'all!

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