Album Reviews

Milt Jackson In A New Setting With Some Old Friends

Michael Fremer  |  Sep 11, 2013

In A New Setting
Milt Jackson
 
Limelight/Speakers Corner LS86006
Produced by: Luchi De Jesus
Engineered by: N/A
Mixed by: N/A
Mastered by: Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound
 
MUSIC
SOUND
I'll never forget the first time I heard well-recorded vibes on an audio system. It was at an E.J. Korvette's in Douglaston, NY on a pair of their XAM "house brand" speakers playing in the store's record department. I bought a lot of records there. The album was Terry Gibbs Quartet's That Swing Thing (Verve V6-8447) recorded live at Shelley's Mannehole in Los Angeles.

The shimmering, bell-toned vibe sound mesmerized even in the crowded department store and though I was there to buy a rock record (I didn't know what, but since I'd needed a ride from my mommy to get there I was not going home empty handed!), I had to have that record and still do. The engineering credit on the jacket was for a Wally Hider (sic), which at the time didn't mean a thing to me but when I got home and played the record, it did.

That 1961 record led me to The Modern Jazz Quartet and of course to Milt Jackson. This Limelight release from 1964 finds Jackson as the leader, freed from the group's "button down" sound and he makes the most of it on a set of short swinging tunes backed by tenor saxist Jimmy Heath (brother of MJQ bassist Percy Heath and still going strong at 86), impeccable MJQ drummer Connie Kay, bassist Bob Cranshaw (long associated with Sonny Rollins) and McCoy Tyner who recorded with Coltrane A Love Supreme the same month as this session. Here he's funky and swinging. You'll hear few if any block chord vamps. His right hand almost gets Monk-ish.

The eleven tunes are all short—around 3 minutes long—leading some to speculate they were intended for airplay and possible hit status but there's nothing musically to indicate the aim was truly commercial and this album, with its colorful, ornate die-cut inner gatefold booklet fairly quickly went out of print and was not issued on CD until the late '90's.

The tunes are funky and bluesy, with a few rest stops for gorgeous ballads like Jackson's "Lazy Melody". Heath taking some boppish blasts and Tyner answers in kind but mostly it just swings tunefully on a set of outstanding originals by Jackson and Heath, with one by Tyner and few standards.

The sound is positively stupendous in a mid-sixties stereo way. With piano and sax hard left, drums and bass hard right and Jackson's shimmering vibes dead center and just about in your lap three-dimensional.

Tonally and dimensionally it doesn't get much better. Who engineered and where we don't know other than probably in New York City somewhere (Nola's Penthouse?). It doesn't really matter. The sound is superb.

This reissue from Speakers Corner goes the full mile, resurrecting the full-color glossy stock die-cut gatefold notes and credits and the record was mastered at Sterling Sound by Ryan K. Smith and if you're not convinced by his stupendous cut of Graceland, among other reissues, that this youngster is an incredibly talented mastering engineer (he learned from George Marino—one of the best), you will after giving this record a spin. Add a pristine Pallas pressing and you have a great reissue of a difficult to find record.

COMMENTS
Steve Edwards's picture
Submitted by Steve Edwards on Thu, 2013-09-12 13:54

My "first time" hearing them was a Cal Tjader 8 track my high school art teacher played for me - recorded live at a little club in, I think, Hermosa Beach, CA. Good stuff. 

Play on

Paul Boudreau's picture
Submitted by Paul Boudreau on Thu, 2013-09-12 14:22

When I was a kid living in Bethesda, MD, I'd buy records at the E.J. Korvette's in Rockville, MD.  You know, go with Mom to get undies & socks and manage to pick up a few LPs with lawn-mowing money plus allowance.  I remember going there once thinking I'd buy the LP with the weirdest-looking cover, which turned out to be "Axis: Bold As Love."  That one definitely rearranged my suburban-kid brain.  I also remember bringing the 1st Led Zeppelin LP back at least three times because of warpage.  Not sure whether that was before or after I saw them open for The Who at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Rick Tomaszewicz's picture
Submitted by Rick Tomaszewicz on Thu, 2013-09-12 18:37

Had a similar experience, but just now.  I've heard for years that RCA's, Living Stereo, Belafonte at Carngie Hall is a benchmark vinyl recording.  I've only found trashed copies at thrift stores.  Yesterday, I found a mint mono version.  I passed on it at first, but after some thought returned and bought it - only $2.  

Can't say I've ever been a big fan of Belafonte's - too sweet for me.  But this, this is something.  The recording is so clear, so there, that you feel like you're the microphone in front of his face.  And that's the mono version!  Can't wait to get a mint stereo copy.   As for Belafonte, he's a pro's pro.  He is so accomplished and comfortable in his own skin that he converts you with his charm.  

Artistically and technically the record transcends time, taste, pace and genre.  Set aside preconceived notions and listen to it alone, (without your judgmental and/or trend-addicted friends present) and prepare to be amazed.  This is what a great recording should be; a conversation between you and the artist.  Period.

Lofty's picture
Submitted by Lofty on Fri, 2013-09-13 06:35

E.J.Korvette and XAM. Boy, does that take me back to my neophyte audiophile days in late 60's-early 70's! XAM speakers were pretty awful. Not much better were Lafayette Radio's Criterion house brand. Then there was Radio Shack's miserable line of Realistic speakers. Allied Radio in the Midwest had their own brand but I'm an East Coast guy so I don't recall the name. If you opened up one of these losers you'd see cheapo drivers and a lot of sawdust. These house brand speakers had wildly high MSRP so it looked like a terrific bargain when salesmen presented a system featuring this dreck. In the long run, of course, you would have been way better off if you went with the AR or KLH speaker and saved less imaginary cash.

The only thing I ever bought at E.J.Korvette (in W.Orange,NJ) was the $10 Grado phono cartridge. It came in a cardboard tube. Well, when I installed it in my trusty AR turntable, my jaw dropped. This sawbuck wonder had a midrange that was alive and uncolored. Except for a rolloff in the extreme treble, it destroyed my 3X more expensive Pickering. I wonder if anyone still has one of these things and if they could tell us how it measures up to today's budget pickups?

elliotdrum's picture
Submitted by elliotdrum on Tue, 2013-09-24 19:34

One of the things that I love about the MJQ when I bought 

my first album in 1959 when I was 14 was the "button down"

sound of the group. Combining elements of classical music

and jazz was very exciting to me. Duck Baker in a review of

another Milt jackson album INVITATION says that the MJQ suffered

from the overly careful approach that plagued much of the

MJQ output. Wow did you ever hear this group live in concert.

At the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Cal and at UCLA  the

four times I was lucky to be there I would only remember that

these musicians were some of the best ever in Jazz history

and they swung their asses off. Careful I don't know but John

Lewis did have a unique style which to this day I still love and

Milt Jackson one of the most fantastic improvisors in Jazz.

The first MJQ album I had was Concorde on Prestige from

1955. My favorite MJQ will always be The European Concert

from 1960 truly definative imo. Milt Jackson's Plenty Plenty

Soul also definative. Listening to the tune Heartstrings from that

album could be life changing!

It would have been great if McCoy and Bags would have done more albums together.

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