Jack McDuff – I got a woman

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Sometimes an album just passes you by and you never see it, never get to know it. Sometimes an album just got  lost in the welter of releases in the sixties. And sometimes an album just had the wrong title. ‘Well, I’ve got Jimmy McGriff’s “I got a woman”; what do I need McDuff’s for?’ In this case, however, I suspect it just got lost because it was too damn late; it didn’t come out until 1969, by which time Jack had made four albums for Atlantic, three for Cadet and would make his first two for Blue Note that year.

So I never saw this album. Never even knew it existed until I bought Michel Ruppli’s Prestige discography in the late seventies and then… well, what do you know about an album in a discography?

But I ripped all my Jack McDuff CDs to my hard drive a couple of weeks ago. Bob Weinstock had a hard time with McDuff’s later recordings, I reckon. It looks from Ruppli’s book as if Peter Paul and Lew Futterman, who managed him, Benny Golson and Jimmy Witherspoon, were just recording Jack and the others whenever they liked and sending the recordings to Prestige when they thought about sending some stuff; some of those recordings have no precise dates or locations. So what Weinstock was sent seems usually to have been a mish-mosh of cuts, which he put together into albums as seemed to work OK. And when Fantasy decided to reissue all that material on twofers, not a lot of it made discographic or release sense. So stuff is strewn around those CDs, as best seemed to the Fantasy staff to work.

There’s a difference between listening to an album and a compilation put together in that way. Those twofer CDs are fine; good music in the McDuff style. But they have no thrust, the way an album that’s put together deliberately with an aim or objective does or can. So, as far as I’m concerned, they just don’t command my attention in the same way.

So I thought I’d like to put the McDuff material back together as it was originally issued on LP, just to see what it was like. Because it’s definitely different listening to a bunch of cuts on a miscellaneous CD, to hearing an album. And when I listened to “I got a woman” (PR7642) my mind BURNED!

“Jesus, I could have been listening to this album for fifty years already!”

OK, here’s the sleeve. A great photo of Jack and Joe Dukes by Don Schlitten (in my view a much better photographer than record producer, though there were some very good ones I concede).

 

LP tracklist

How high the moon (6:24) (Silken soul)

English country gardens (4:22) (Prelude)

Spoonin’ (6:01) (The concert McDuff)

I got a woman (8:33) (Legends of Acid Jazz)

Twelve inches (8:08) (The last good ‘un)

 

The title track is a trio effort: McDuff, Benson and Dukes done in New York in July 1964.

“English country gardens” is the trio again, plus Red Holloway and a band conducted by Benny Golson, from early 1965.

“How high the moon” is from a February 1966 session in New York with Holloway, Dukes, Harold Ousley and Pat Martino.

“Twelve inches” is from a 1965 session in New York with Holloway, Benson, Dukes and Montego Joe.

“Spoonin’” is from a late 1965 or early 1966 done in New York, with Holloway, Martino and Dukes.

OK, you might perhaps say the track with the Golson band needn’t be there. Perhaps that’s right; perhaps “Silk and soul”, a really GREAT burner, would have worked better. But, by the time Weinstock received many of those tracks, “Silk and soul” had been issued. And anyway, a nice relaxed swinger goes well in the mix, contrasting with the high intensity work on the other material, whether it’s burners like the title cut, or “Spoonin’”, a medium-paced blues in the vein of “A real good ‘un”.

Paul and Futterman may have been good managers, but they weren’t record producers. And, to be pointed about it, they weren’t album producers. So Bobby Weinstock was in a heck of a fix when it came to making the kind of decisions he had to.

So, the album came out and no one gave a toss. Sorry Jack.

Putting it together was a revelation. This is an album to note among Brother Jack’s very best.

You can put your own copy together from the twofers, but you need a hell of a lot of ‘em: each cut comes from a different CD! Get the sleeve from Discogs.

And let your mind burn, too!

MG

PS The sleeve of "The concert McDuff" CD says "Spoonin'" was recorded at Van Gelder's studio in HACKENSACK! in late '65 or early '66.

[JSngry]

There was some discographical speculation about "Spoonin'" & "How High the Moon" here, from 2005:

 

And at some point, somewhere else, maybe, it was determined that one of the cuts on this one that was thought to be from one session was actually from another? Whatever it was, be careful in your assembly, because, in 2005 anyway, maybe not all of what was on this LP had been released on CD yet, maybe?

Anyway, first McDuff album I ever owned, and it's always been one of those LPs I think og as a "one-sider", I put Side 1 on and nevr turn it over, no need to!

[mjzee]

TMG, have you ever posted one of your great artist overviews about McDuff?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

*never* seen this, i want

this makes a good companion lp