Label: Ojc
Audio CD: (July 1, 1991)
Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, California on February 12 & 13, 1969.
Originally released on Contemporary (7634)
Jazz
From his emergence in the mid-1950s, Phineas Newborn was one of the most technically brilliant two-handed pianists who ever played jazz. Belonging to a virtuoso lineage that included Art Tatum and Bud Powell, he regularly inspired comparison with Oscar Peterson. Newborn would readily tear off runs in octaves with an ease that would be impressive with single notes, improvise complex solos with his left hand against right-hand trills, and crush complex explosions of notes between the phrases of a ballad. His playing seemed tautly suspended between sheer technical excess and manic creative fire, but he also had an ingrained feeling for the blues, honed in the Memphis bands of his youth. Harlem Blues was recorded in 1969, when Newborn had been out of the studios for some years, and he's joined by the dynamic team of Ray Brown on bass and Elvin Jones on drums, stellar accompanists who stoke Newborn's singular fire on the title tune, a brash up-date of stride and boogie-woogie, and on a hard-swinging version of Horace Silver's "Cookin' at the Continental." Probably the most potent rhythm section that Newborn was ever matched with, Brown and Jones are also wise enough to let the pianist follow his own shifting paths on such standards as "Sweet and Lovely" and "Stella by Starlight." More than two decades after his death, Newborn's explosive piano approach continues to be felt in succeeding generations of fellow-Memphis pianists like Harold Mabern and Geoff Keezer.
By Stuart Broomer. AMG.
Digitally remastered using 20 bit K2 technology, this is a Japanese reissue of an original album cut for the Prestige in a miniaturized LP sleeve limited to the initial pressing only. Contains the original cover art & all seven of the tracks from when it.
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"Buried Treasure Found" a review of the Phineas Newborn, Jr. trio recording _Harlem Blues_ with Ray Brown, double bass and Elvin Jones, drums ([?Yokohama] Japan: Victor Entertainment, Inc., [c1999]) (VICJ-60374 Compact Disc) originally produced by Lester Koenig and recorded at Los Angeles, CA: Contemporary Records, 12-13 February 1969 (S-7634). 7 tracks; TT 38:30; "an Extended Resolution Compact Disc 2 [XRCD2] re-mastering by Alan Yoshida, A&M Mastering Studios, Hollywood, CA". Original liner notes by John Koenig. Program booklet (12 pp.) integrated with CD card-stock case with notes in Japanese.
My one disappointment with this recording is its total time of less than 39 minutes. Would that the experts and engineers had dug deeper in the "vaults" for whatever else these musicians recorded those two February days in 1969. (The liner notes report that some 15 tunes were recorded by this trio during the two days they were in studio.) But, I'll go with what is on this JVC XRCD2 re-issue. This is a wonderful, happy, technically challenging trio performance, recorded when (we have been told by Ken Burns and others) jazz was all but dead and in need of resuscitation. Not so.
Phineas Newborn, Memphis born and raised (in his youth a contemporary of Memphis-born trumpeter Booker Little), is all over the piano, making musical allusions to his teachers and peers, pianists Art Tatum, Bud Powell, and Oscar Peterson. Ray Brown, true to form, propels the trio the same way he did when with O.P. Elvin Jones, the new comer to this setting, provides the asymmetric, polyrhythmic drive familiar to all who love the work of the John Coltrane Quartet.
`Harlem's Blues' a gospel blues doodle by Newborn which his fellow musicians asked be worked into this recording session and which ended up serving as its title, could be Memphis' Blues for all I know, but one thing for sure - it swings. Bluesy `Sweet and Lovely' and bouncy `Little Girl Blue' are great show tunes that jazz musicians love to work through, and Newborn lavishes their renderings here with technical wonderment. `Ray's Idea' (Brown's composition) is a bouncy, bop line that reminds me of Bud Powell and gives Jones an opportunity to exchange astounding, off-center `fours' with Newborn. `Stella by Starlight' lets Newborn settle into an almost complete solo approach to this wonderful tune. The bass introduction to `Tenderly' gives the listener a wonderful and all-too-rare example of the brilliant solo work of Ray Brown. `Cookin' at the Continental' (Horace Silver) is an up-tempo ride and Elvin is doing the cookin' behind his colleagues.
For those interested in the origins of tunes, John Koenig, in his liner notes, tells us the story behind `Tenderly'. This beautiful standard was written by Walter Gross, pianist at the now defunct LA Sunset Strip club, The Embers. Ray Brown would go to listen to Gross and asked him to play this song and that's how Brown learned it. The song [Koenig says] was introduced by Sarah Vaughn in the late 1940s when Gross, as musical director for Musicraft Records, had Vaughn record it for that label. The things one can learn from liner notes. This recording by Phineas Newborn, Jr. is truly an example of buried treasure found.
By Charles A. Ralston.
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Phineas Newborn (Piano),
Ray Brown (Bass),
Elvin Jones (Drums).
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01. Harlem Blues
02. Sweet And Lovely
03. Little Girl Blue
05. Stella by Starlight
04. Ray's Idea
06. Tenderly
07. Cookin' At The Continental
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