J.R. MONTROSE IN ACTION

[JSngry]

$3.08 at http://www.cybermusicsurplus.com/online_ca...sku_tag=BBR3503

Some of the most daring, gripping, and PERSONAL tenor playing I've ever heard. No shit, this is the REAL deal. I'll be deep into this one for YEARS to come.

It's OOP, so carpe diem. You can thank me later.

[Chuck Nessa]

Does this disc now really have 3 alternates? The cms site repeats 3 titles giving a total of 9 tracks. This must be an error.

[Dave James]

Highly recommended. I just cited Montrose's version of Lover Man from this session as a favorite tenor ballad on another thread. I've had "In Action" for years. It was a freebie. The jazz radio station where I did a volunteer gig used to put demo CD's out on a table for the taking after announcer meetings. I knew nothing of Montrose at the time, but the line up of songs sounded good so I took it. Boy was that the right decision.

Do not let this one slip through your fingers.

Up over and out.

[JSngry]

Does this disc now really have 3 alternates?

no.

[JSngry]

I kid you not - this is some gripping music. If you only know Montrose from his days as a quite interesting but ultimately somewhat derivative Rollins discicple, you very well might not recognize the player heard here. Montrose has TOTALLY found his own voice, and is singing (figuratively, of course) with imagination, grace, fluidity, spontaneity, natural (not preordained) swing, and all the other good stuff that happens when a player is in that ZONE.

Yeah, Montrose is in a zone on this album. It's a beautiful thing when that happens. It's even moe beautiful when it don't cost but 3 bucks to hear it.

[robviti]

Gripping though the music might be (and I totally agree it is), you folks don't have a grasp of how to spell J.R.'s name. It's Monterose, not Montrose. But don't feel bad, even the Storyville record label got it wrong!

BTW, a personal favorite of mine is A Little Pleasure, a series of great duets with Tommy Flanagan recorded for the Reservoir label. They got it right:

Edited August 16, 2003 by jazzshrink

[P.D.]

Without the "E" its all Jack

[JSngry]

Speeeling gafes asife, this id a superj albuim.

[brownie]

The Xanadu reissue of the Monterose Jaro album also had J.R. as Montebrose in its

personnel list.

Gave a fresh listen to the In Action last night. Beautiful music. Got an original copy of

this album years ago and this has been playing numerous times. His Uptown albums

are also superb (the duo date with Tommy Flanagan gets more interesting at each fresh listening).

[Chuck Nessa]

I started at the University of Iowa in the summer session of 1962, lasted a year before they told me to take a year off (flunked out - could be reinstated in a year). Got married, moved back to Iowa City in the fall of 1964 to try school again. In the meantime, JR, on the road with Jay and the Americans, sat in at the Tender Trap (key club in Cedar Rapids), felt at home, quit the road and became the star attraction at the TT. JR's motive was to kick his smack habit. In Action was recorded during that year.

By the time I moved to IC JR had moved there and had pressings but no covers. I gave him 5 bucks and he promised a cover later, which he did give me.

We became very good friends - my wife (Ann) was back home trying to sell her business, and I was BROKE. Each morning JR would drive his MG Midget to my place and we would go to the Airline Bar and have 2 Bloody Marys to start the day. Then we would get in the Midget so JR could watch the chickies and sip on his bottle of codine cough syrup. This would take about 2 hours. Then we'd go to "Little Bill's" the local club he played (Mon -Sat plus afternoons on Fri and Sat). The rhythm section was hipper than the Studio 4 record. John Wilmeth on bass and Rusty Jones on drums. Anyway, for 6 months, part of JRs deal at the bar was that I always had a plate of food and a beer in front of me. I ate 2 meals a day at Little Bill's for 6 months thanks to JR.

The point I was trying to get to: Studio 4 recorded a second album with the Iowa City quartet and it was FAR SUPERIOR to the issued date. I remember a great version of Out of This World. The tapes are lost.

Tons more JR stories, like going to hear Trane's quartet at the Plugged Nickel, but I'm tired of typing.

[BruceH]

What say you folks about an album by Monterose called "The Message" (1959)? They spelled his name right, first, and second he plays with Tommy Flanagan, Jimmy Garrison, and Pete LaRoca. A year or two ago I saw this album on vinyl and grabbed it. I'm glad I did.

[Chuck Nessa]

The Message is a very fine recording but by the mid sixties I think JR had moved to another level. This phase may not have lasted long since nothing I've heard since then compares.

[Dave James]

Chuck,

Thanks for the recollections from your time with J.R. Montrose. Nothing quite like being there. If you get a hankering to share more stories, I'm sure you'll be dealing with both a captive and a captivated audience.

You mentioned some time Montrose spent at the Tender Trap. I have what I think is a fairly obscure CD on the Fresh Sound label that documents some of his performances there. Got it up in Canada. If I recall correctly, it's called simply "At the Tender Trap". Unfortunately, the recording quality isn't very good, although I would still classify it as being within tolerable limits. Interesting thing is that on one of the numbers, a quite mainstream sounding Al Jarreau sits in on vocals. According to the liner notes, he was attending college nearby and used to drop in at the TT on a regular basis.

Thanks again for the reminisces.

Up over and out.

[Chuck Nessa]

Al Jarreau was in grad school at the University of Iowa. He performed about one Sat. night a month at the Trap, which was in Cedar Rapids. I rode to the gig with him a few times. He was then a Mathis/Hendricks inspired jazz singer. Everything in his later "popish" style was in place at the time. He made a record for Studio 4 in 1965 with a Tender Trap rhythm section. It was not issued at the time but was issued on vinyl by Bainbridge around 1980.

The Iowa City jazz scene was interesting at the time. Dale Oehler, the pianist on the JR record has/had a career as arranger/producer in LA (run an AMG search to see all the credits). John Wilmeth, JR's IC bassist also played trumpet and you can do an AMG search on him too. The regular drummer was Rusty Jones (nephew of Isham) who later toured with George Shearing for a few years. He later became a staple in the Chicago club scene.

Paul Smoker had his own scene going on at the time, as did a dandy tenor player named Kent Kohea.

As I was about to leave the university scene, JR was talking of moving to LA and the rest of the guys enticed their friends Dave Sanborn and a fine drummer named Tom Radtke to transfer from Northwestern to Iowa. You all know what happened to Davie, but Tom became one of the two "on call" studio drummers in Chicago.

All of these people made it into AMG, I see.

[BruceH]

This is fascinating. Up until now, I never would have thought that Iowa City had a "jazz scene." But it is a college town, after all.

[Chuck Nessa]

Hey, Iowa was the birthplace of Bix, Art Farmer and Glenn Miller.

[BruceH]

Hey, I'm not knocking Iowa! I've got relatives there and visiting them on Summer vacations were some of the happiest times of my childhood. It's just that, despite the Bix/Farmer/Miller connection, when you think of Iowa you don't automatically think "hotbed of jazz."

[DrJ]

Thanks for the recommendation, Jim. My copy is on the way...

[Eric]

Just received "In Action". Lovely CD. Thanks for the recommendation!

Eric

[Brad]

Chuck,

I'm repeating others but thanks for the reminisences. I just ordered it.

[DrJ]

Got it and listened several times this past couple of days. You know, it's real solid, and I'm glad to have heard it and have it in the collection. There are some major faults that are hard to overlook - Monterose didn't have a real individual, identifiable tone (personally I hear a whole lot of Lucky Thompson, not in the tone but in the softness of his articulation at times and his eloquence and restraint, in addition to the more obvious influences like Rollins and, inevitably, Coltrane), the backing trio is rather pedestrian (probably the biggest blemish), and the couple of more aggressive numbers so far leave me cold - again, mostly down to the rather leaden backing more than any problems on Monterose's part.

He shines on the slower pieces though, easily worth the price of admission and on those the Lucky parallel is really striking, and I'm not just sayin' that 'cause of my avatar! I wonder if that was a declared, overt influence or just coincidence? I REALLY dig the first tune "Waltz For Clare" (that one's been haunting me, but then I also tend to gravitate toward jazz in 3/4 and 6/4) and the slight but clever variation on "All The Things You Are," and definitely "Lover Man," justly singled out above.

I do get the feeling one has to live with the album for a while to get the full impact so this is in no way a "final judgement." Again, glad to have it and get the chance to savor it over time.

Edited August 29, 2003 by DrJ

[Brad]

You may want to check out his Straight Ahead record on Xanadu. No pedestrian rhythm section there: Tommy Flanagan, Jimmy Garrison and Pete La Roca. You're right about the ballads. He really plays those. There is deep emotion and feeling there. I Remember Clifford is as fine a version as I've heard (close to Lee's).

[DrJ]

On the strength of IN ACTION's ballads, I'll definitely be checking that one out, thanks for the tip Brad.

[JSngry]

The thing that totally grabs me on this album is Monterose's phrasing and his playing of ideas rather than licks. His phrasing is "over" the beat ather than "inside" it, and he begins and ends his lines only when the idea has been completed, which sometimes coincides with the bar lines, and sometimes doesn't. There's a true melodicism at work here that I find quite striking.

Also, the absolute confidence with which he plays makes quite an impact on me. It's not easy to be so sustainedly melodic AND thoughtful without hitting a bump every now and then, or at least allowing yourself a pocket or two of slack to collect your thoughts. Monterose never does this here, and I find that quite impressive. Check out how his phrases begin quite boldly, and then, rather than that boldness setting up a bravura running of licks, the idea introduced is sustained all the way through, and as boldly as the beginning. Not too many players get into that zone, especially over the length of an entire album!

The inflections are happening too. Rather than serving as effects, they are organically integrated into the ideas. You can take a line that is inflected for effect and play it straight, and it will still retain it's essence, but the way Monterose does it, it's as if those inflections are part and parcel of the line itself, as if they were "written" into the "composition" of the lines. Again, this is a rare level of improvisation.

Of course, Monterose is coming heavily out of the Rollins bag, and everything I've described is things that Sonny was doing back then. But I'm struck by how even though the concept, the abstract approach to the music, is similar to Rollins', the actual playing is totally non-Rollins like in specifics. Monterose here is not necessarily playing "original" in the sense of creating a new approach, but he IS playing strikingly PERSONAL - what he plays, the specifics, are unlike anybody else, even though the impetus behind those specifics can be traced to other players.

It's that personal quality that really catches my attention. Originality per se is not always what compels me. In some instances, the reaching of a totally personal voice within an established "bag" is just as ear-opening. Bill Perkins' work when he was in that mid-50s "float" zone of his is one example, and Monterose's playing here is another. It's not necessarily an an immediately obvious thing, but over time, the little details come to light, and the realization of how much DETAIL is in a player's work, and just how focused they had to be to get all that detail, that specificity, is a reward unto itself. Sometimes you hear cats blowing, and it's really good, but you can tell that it's more of a "big picture" approach to the music than it is anything else, which is certainly rewarding in and of itself. But sometimes you hear a guy who's really "inside" the music, whose every move is deliberate, and whose every nuance is of the moment. That kind of stuff just fascinate me to no end. It's the difference, to me, between reading a prepared speech out loud with great feeling and creating a fully formed and nuanced speech extemporaneously. Making the improvised sound totally composed. Both can result in powerful results, but the former is a helluva lot more easily accomplished than is the latter!

I guess what I'm saying is that my fascination with this album springs from not just the music, but the "state" of its creator. To be so "clear" (I think that's a Scientology term, and I sincerely apologize for that, but the term seems to fit) as Monterose is here is something that so many of us, and not just musicians, strive for but so rarely reach, if indeed we EVER do. If it doesn't last, well, such is life. It's the rarity of its occurance that makes it such a delight to experience when the opportunity presents itself, even if it's a the company of a thoroughly "local" sounding accompanying group.

And, as well, it's a TOTALLY subjective thing whether or not one senses it! But I think that with careful, repeated lisrening, and a consideration of all the specifics that the music reveals, it makes itself apparent in this album. If that sounds like a lot of work to put into listening to a simple jazz record, well, it is. But not as much work (and not necessarily "labor") as J.R. was putting into playing it!

[DrJ]

I understand you pretty "clearly!" That's what really strikes me about the waltz and the "All the Things..." variant, you can really hear that he's got an unusual relationship with the beat and that he's thinking out every little inflection, there are not any accidents (well, if there are, he pretty quickly develops them). It's just that I'm not always as compelled by what he does as you are, but again that's just on first pass through and it's something I already find to be very fine.