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Impressions ~ Buck Hill Quartet | By Eddie Carter
The Buck Hill Quartet steps into the spotlight for this morning’s discussion with the second of two live albums from The North Sea Jazz Festival. Impressions (SteepleChase Records SCS 1173) is a 1983 release that was recorded on July 11 & 12 during the quartet’s 1981 performance. The remainder of their concert appears on Easy To Love (1982). The tenor saxophonist is working again with Reuben Brown on piano, Wilbur Little on bass, and Billy Hart on drums. Buck began his professional career in 1943 while working as a mailman in Washington D.C. He’s collaborated with Charlie Byrd, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Shirley Horn, Alan Houser, Max Roach, Shirley Scott, and Sonny Stitt, and was also proficient on the clarinet and soprano sax. My copy used in this report is the 1983 Netherlands Stereo album sharing the Danish catalog number.
Side One begins with the jazz standard, Alone Together by Arthur Schwartz, and Howard Dietz. It was written in 1932 and began life as a show tune in the Broadway musical, Flying Colors. The quartet takes off with a brisk workout on the melody. Buck swings swiftly into the opening statement. Reuben speaks his peace next vigorously. Billy has a brief conversation with both soloists, then generates some heat on the closer into the reprise and exit. Hill makes a few announcements anchored by just the piano, then the group travels to Penn Station, a medium-paced blues by Reuben Brown. The ensemble comes into the station leisurely on the melody. Brown starts the soloing with a comfortable groove. Hill emanates a funky, down-home feeling on the second statement. Little sparkles on the third reading with a thoroughly relaxed performance into piano and tenor sharing an exchange before the closing chorus.
Side Two gets underway with Yesterdays by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The trio makes a brief introduction, then Buck begins the opening chorus at midtempo. He turns the temperature up with a scintillating reading of concentrated heat. Reuben starts the next statement at a slow pace, then proceeds to an aggressive workout. Wilbur wraps up the solos with a concise comment ahead of the ensemble’s climax. John Coltrane’s Impressions ends the set on an uptempo note with the foursome swinging from the opening notes of the high-spirited melody. Buck and Reuben are the featured soloists and Brown energetically prances through the first solo with authority. Hill delivers the final word with an intense interpretation of astonishing voracity and electrically charged passion leading to the quartet’s exit and crowd’s ovation.
Impressions was produced by Nils Winther and Ronald Prent was the recording engineer on this album and its companion, Easy To Love. The sound is stunning throughout the album and the record is quiet until the music starts. Buck Hill was a tremendous talent on the tenor sax that could swing hard in an uptempo setting but could also show his tender side with a gorgeous tone on a ballad or standard. A tribute mural of him playing his sax in his mailman uniform by artist Joe Pagac resides at 1925 14th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. He passed away at age ninety on March 20, 2017. If you’re just discovering the music of Buck Hill and enjoy the tenor sax, I invite you to check out Impressions by The Buck Hill Quartet. It’s an album that’s sure to make you smile and if you’re already a fan should make a welcome addition to your jazz library!
>~ Easy To Love (SteepleChase Records SCS-1160) – Source: Discogs.com
~ Alone Together, Yesterdays – Source: JazzStandards.com
~ Impressions – Source: Wikipedia.org
© 2021 by Edward Thomas Carter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bobby Jones, born October 30, 1928 in Louisville, Kentucky and played drums as a child, started on clarinet at age 8, and his father encouraged him to explore jazz. He studied with Simeon Bellison, Joe Allard, Charlie Parker, and George Russell.
He played with Ray McKinley from 1949 into the mid-1950s, and then with Hal McIntyre before rejoining McKinley later in the decade. During a stint in the Army he met Nat and Cannonball Adderley as well as Junior Mance. After his discharge he played country music and rock & roll as a studio musician, and did time with Boots Randolph. He worked with Glenn Miller in 1950 before returning to McKinley from 1959 to 1963.
He spent a brief time with Woody Herman and Jack Teagarden in 1963, and after the latter’s death he retired to Louisville and started a local jazz council there in addition to teaching at Kentucky State College. In 1969 he moved to New York City and played with Charles Mingus from 1970 to 1972, touring Europe and Japan with him. He also recorded sessions under his own name in 1972 and 1974.
Late in his life he moved to Germany, where he ceased performing due to emphysema. Saxophonist Bobby Jones passed away on March 6, 1980 in Munich, Germany.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Rudy Powell was born in New York City on October 28, 1907 and learned piano and violin while young before taking on the clarinet and saxophone. In the late 1920s, he played with June Clark, Gene Rodgers’s Revellers, and Cliff Jackson’s Krazy Kats.
Rudy worked extensively as a sideman throughout his career. Among his credits in the 1930s are Elmer Snowden, Dave Nelson, Sam Wooding, Kaiser Marshall, Rex Stewart, Fats Waller, Edgar Hayes, and Claude Hopkins. The Forties saw him playing with Teddy Wilson, Andy Kirk, Fletcher Henderson, Eddie South, Don Redman, Chris Columbus, Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and Hopkins again.
By the 1950s and through the Sixties Powell was with Jimmy Rushing, Buddy Tate, Benton Heath, Ray Charles, and Buddy Johnson. Never recording as a leader, he did record with Cat Anderson, Al Casey, Duke Ellington, Cliff Jackson, Jo Jones, Lucky Millinder, Jimmy Rushing, and Saints & Sinners. He continued playing intermittently into the 1970s and was a part of the photo A Great Day In Harlem.
Clarinetist and saxophonist Rudy Powell, who later changed his name to Musheed Karweem when he joined the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, passed away at age 69 on October 30, 1976.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Boyd Albert Raeburn was born in Faith, South Dakota on October 27, 1913 and attended the University of Chicago, where he led a campus band. Gaining his earliest experience as a commercial bandleader at 1933~1934 Chicago’s World Fair, for the rest of the decade, he worked in and often led dance bands.
In the Forties the group passed through swing before becoming identified with the bop school. He went on to start a big band, which was active from 1944 to 1947, performing arrangements comprable to those used by Woody Herman and the progressive jazz of Stan Kenton during the same period. The compositions arranged by George Handy were the most contemporary, and after Handy’s departure Johnny Richards joined in 1947 and for the next year he wrote 50 compositions.
He composed Rip Van Winkle for his second wife, singer Ginny Powell, who sang with her husband’s group, as well as with Harry James and Gene Krupa. Boyd left music in the mid-1950s and they moved to Nassau, Bahamas where his wife transitioned.
Settling in New Orleans, Louisiana for a time, he ran a furniture store. Bass saxophonist and bandleader Boyd Raeburn passed away of a heart attack at age 52 on August 2, 1966 in Lafayette, Indiana.
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The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
For Musicians Only is an album by Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and Sonny Stitt incorporating bebop influences. Produced by Norman Granz, it was recorded on October 16, 1956 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California. It wasn’t released until 1958 on the Verve label. It has been described as the real thing, no pretense.
The story behind this session from Stan Levy’s point of view is that everything was done in one take, no 2nd takes, no overdubbing. It was virtually a live, real bebop session, nothing worked out, just play by the seat of your pants or get off the bandstand. Like it or not, that was the way it was with Bird and those cats, the real thing, no pretense.
The album is known for the front line’s winding, intricate solos. This has led to praise for the back line, particularly bassist Ray Brown, for keeping some semblance of the original tune going behind the solos.
Track List | 42:59- Bebop (Gillespie) ~ 12:48
- Dark Eyes (Traditional) ~ 12:10
- Wee (Allen’s Alley) (Denzil Best, Gillespie) – 8:28
- Lover Come Back to Me (Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein II) ~ 9:33
- Dizzy Gillespie ~ trumpet
- Sonny Stitt ~ alto saxophone
- Stan Getz ~ tenor saxophone
- John Lewis ~ piano
- Herb Ellis ~ guitar
- Ray Brown ~ bass
- Stan Levey ~ drums
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