Requisites
The Lost Melody ~ Joe Bonner Quartet | By Eddie Carter
The Joe Bonner Quartet begins this morning’s discussion with their 1987 release, The Lost Melody (SteepleChase Records SCS-1227). It was the pianist’s sixth album for Nils Winther’s label and ninth as a leader. Joe was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and attended Virginia State College. His style was Hard-Bop and Modal, and he learned from the musicians he worked with. Bonner’s influences include Art Tatum and McCoy Tyner, and his resume includes playing with several jazz greats. On this date, Bob Rockwell on tenor sax, Jesper Lundgaard on bass, and Jukkis Uotila on drums complete the ensemble. My copy is the original European Stereo album.
You and The Night and The Music, by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, kicks off Side One at a breakneck pace, with Bob unleashing a jolt of energy in the melody and first solo. Joe maintains the fierce intensity in the following performance; next, Jukkis closes with a short workout into the theme’s brisk ending. Easy Living by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin begins with Bonner’s gentle introduction, segueing into the group’s lovely theme. Bob opens with an exceptionally beautiful interpretation. Joe continues to cast a spell over the listener in the second solo. Bob returns to add a few more thoughts ahead of a gorgeous climax.
Vibeke, the first of three tunes by Joe Bonner, brings the tempo upward for the ensemble’s medium theme. Rockwell and Bonner effectively demonstrate their excellent playing in the first two statements. Things take an adventurous turn when the saxophonist becomes more exploratory in a second solo before the theme’s restatement. Side Two opens with the title tune. The Lost Melody is a pretty ballad by the pianist that he introduces softly. Bob enriches the opening chorus and song’s opening solo with sensitivity and warmth; Joe comes in next and gets to the song’s heart with an elegantly tender performance leading to the finale.
The Song Is You by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II comes from their 1932 musical Music In The Air. The quartet flies out of the gate with a speedy melody. Bob blows blistering notes in the first reading; then Joe is off to the races next. Bob reappears for a rapid exchange with Jukkis, preceding the climax. The album wraps up with Bonner’s Manuella, with the foursome taking it easy on the melody. The leader glides comfortably into the opening statement. Rockwell follows with a bluesy tone in the second reading. Lundgaard keeps the groove flowing in his only interpretation until the group slowly dissolves into nothingness.
Nils Winther produced The Lost Melody, and Flemming Rasmussen was the man behind the dials of this digital recording. The album’s sound quality is excellent, with a wide soundstage and excellent dynamics. It’s also a superb pressing that’s drop-dead quiet. I wasn’t aware of Joe Bonner until this album, but I’m delighted I’ve discovered him and will look for his other releases. If you’re a jazz piano fan like me and are in the mood for Hard-Bop, I invite you to seek out The Lost Melody by The Joe Bonner Quartet on your next record hunt. It’s an enjoyable way to begin your journey into his music and a terrific album that should not be missed for a spot in your library!
~ Easy Living, The Song Is You, You and The Night and The Music – Source: JazzStandards.com ~ Joe Bonner – Source: Wikipedia.org © 2023 by Edward Thomas Carter
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Clyde Lanham Hurley, Jr. was born on September 3, 1916 in Fort Worth, Texas. Self-taught, he learned to play the trumpet by playing along with Louis Armstrong records. He studied music at the Texas Christian University in Fort Worth from 1932 to 1936 where he participated in the school’s jazz band. He began his career working with territory bands.
In 1937, while drummer/band-leader Ben Pollack was touring through Texas he heard Hurley and invited him to join his orchestra where he soloed on So Unexpectedly. While on a touring stop with the band in Los Angeles, California he left to become a studio musician. He played with Paul Whiteman then with Glenn Miller. While with Miller he was one of the key soloists appearing on the band’s studio recordings and live performances throughout America.
Hurley played the trumpet solo on Miller’s In The Mood, Slip Horn Jive and Tuxedo Junction. Leaving Miller in 1940 he went on to work with Tommy Dorsey before joining Artie Shaw in 1941.After his stint with Shaw, he freelanced for the movie studios. In 1941, he played the trumpet track for the classic Walter Lantz cartoon Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.
He worked for MGM from the mid-Forties to the end of the decade and for NBC from 1950 to 1955. During the late 1950s, Hurley played in Dixieland groups, recording with Matty Matlock’s Rampart Street Paraders. In 1954, he recorded live with Ralph Sutton and Edmond Hall at the Club Hangover. His studio work in the 1950s included sessions with Paul Weston. He soloed on Memories of You on Weston’s Solo Flight album.
Trumpeter Clyde Hurley, who was prominent during the big band era, transitioned on August 14, 1963 from coronary occlusion in Fort Worth.
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Steve Masakowski was born on September 2, 1954 in New Orleans, Louisiana and The Beatles influenced his desire to play guitar. When he was fourteen, he played bass guitar and co-founded the band Truth, which was based on the rock band Cream. During his high school years he became interested in composing, and started taking guitar lessons to learn about harmony. His teacher introduced him to the music of jazz guitarists Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, and Lenny Breau.
He went to Berklee College of Music in 1974, studied music theory, arranging, and composition. Returning home with his girlfriend Emily Remler after getting his degree, Steve founded the group Fourplay, not to be confused with the later jazz group of the same name. From 1976 to 1978, he studied classical composition and orchestration at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts with Bert Braud.
The early Eighties he played regularly with local New Orleans musicians such as Willie Tee, Earl Turbinton, Jr. and Alvin Tyler, as well as accompanying visiting musicians Randy Brecker, Tom Harrell, Art Baron, and Dave Liebman. His next band Mars played a mix of jazz and electronic music. He then went on to found the Composers Recording Studio with harpist Patrice Fisher, guitarist Jimmy Robinson, and violinist Denise Villere. After a ten year stretch the studio closed and he started working in duet with Ellis Marsalis Jr., then joined Astral Project, toured with Dianne Reeves. He leads the band Nova NOLA.
As an educator in 1991, he became a full-time faculty member at the University of New Orleans and became Chair of Jazz Studies and director of the jazz program in 2004 . He invented the key-tar, a guitar-like instrument with seven rows of keys instead of strings, one key at each fret. This pre-MIDI controller was hardwired to a Moog synthesizer.
Inspired by a visit to New Orleans by seven-string guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, he began to explore the seven-string guitar, first finding an early Gretsch, then designing his own models which have the expanded range of a normal guitar and bass guitar combined. Guitarist and educator Steve Masakowski continues to perform, record and educate.
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Willie Henry Ruff Jr. was born September 1, 1931 in Sheffield, Alabama. He attended the Yale School of Music earning his Bachelor and Masters of Music by 1954.
He first met Dwike Mitchell in 1947 when they were teenaged servicemen stationed at the former Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio. Mitchell recruited Ruff to play bass with his unit band for an Air Force radio program. The two of them went on to later play in Lionel Hampton’s band but left in 1955 to form their own group, the Mitchell-Ruff Duo. They played as a second act to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie.
From 1955 to 2011 the duo regularly performed and lectured throughout the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Mitchell-Ruff Duo was the first jazz band to play in the Soviet Union in 1959 and in China in 1981. Chosen by John Hammond to be the bass player for the recording sessions of Songs of Leonard Cohen, an album first released in 1967. During those sessions, he and Cohen laid down the bed tracks for most of the songs on the album.
He is one of the founders of the W. C. Handy Music Festival in Florence, Alabama, was a faculty member at the Yale School of Music from 1971 until his retirement in 2017, teaching music history, ethnomusicology, and arranging. Willie was a founding Director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at Yale, held a visiting appointment at Duke University, where he oversaw the jazz program and directed the Duke Jazz Ensemble and was on the faculty at UCLA and Dartmouth.
Over the course of his career he recorded as a soloist, in a duo and as a sideman with Quincy Jones, Bobby Hutcherson, Gil Evans, Benny Golson, Milt Jackson, Lalo Schifrin, Sonny Stitt, Clifford Coulter, Miles Davis and Jimmy Smith.
French horn and double bassist Willie Ruff, who played in the Mitchell-Ruff Duo with pianist for over 50 years, was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and has published his memoir A Call to Assembly: The Autobiography of a Musical Storyteller, is retired at 91.
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Todd Washington Rhodes was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on August 31, 1899 and was raised in Springfield, Ohio. He attended the Springfield School of Music and the Erie Conservatory, studying as pianist and songwriter. After graduating in 1921, he began performing with drummer William McKinney in the jazz band McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, and played with Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller, Rex Stewart, Doc Cheatham, and Don Redman.
Leaving McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in 1934, he lived and played in Detroit, Michigan from then on. He formed his own small group in 1943, expanding it into the Todd Rhodes Orchestra by 1946. The orchestra made its first recordings for Sensation Records in 1947.
Turning more towards rhythm and blues music, the band became known as Todd Rhodes & His Toddlers, and their recordings were distributed by the Vitacoustic label. His instrumental Blues for the Red Boy reached number 4 on the R&B chart late in 1948, and the following year Pot Likker, made number 3 on the R&B chart. “Blues for the Red Boy” was later famously used by Alan Freed as the theme song for his Moondog radio show; Freed referring to the song as “Blues for the Moondog” instead of its actual title.
With his Toddlers, Rhodes also recorded Your Daddy’s Doggin’ Around and Your Mouth Got a Hole in It. After signing with King Records in 1951, he also worked with Hank Ballard, Dave Bartholomew, and Wynonie Harris. He featured singers such as Connie Allen, who recorded “Rocket 69” in 1952. After she left the band in early 1952, her position was taken by LaVern Baker. Rhodes made his last recordings in the late 1950s.
Developing diabetes, which was untreated for several years, pianist, arranger and bandleader Todd Rhodes transitioned following the amputation of a leg in Inkster, Michigan on June 4, 1965, at the age of 65.
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