Album Reviews

This 1962 release is a pick-up session plain and simple, made interesting by the presence of the adventurous multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk and the always-tasteful pianist Tommy Flanagan—not that the snare-popping Haynes isn’t a superb and exciting drummer and Henry Grimes doesn’t acquit himself well on bass.

Haynes is still gigging at 83, having played with everyone from Bird to Prez to Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Chick Corea (etc.). Here at 36, he’s got energy and power to spare.

The session warms up with Artie Shaw’s “Moon Ray,” and then it’s on to the then popular “Fly Me to The Moon,” I’d bet at the insistence of producer Bob Thiele (and much to the consternation of everyone else involved), made almost tolerable by Kirk’s antics. The side is saved by Haynes’ jumpy bop composition “Raoul.”

Side two opens with another original, “Snap Crackle,” which is Haynes’ nickname, and when you hear him playing here you’ll know why, if you don’t already: he insistently pops that snare and gets a “snap crackle” out of it that few drummers can, or want to match. Kirk is on flute.

There’s a swinging cover of “If I Should Lose You,” taken apart by Kirk and made whole again by a great Flanagan solo, another Haynes original, “Long Wharf,” (Haynes hails from Boston), and finally the beautiful ballad “Some Other Spring,” written by pianist Teddy Wilson’s ex-wife Irene and popularized by Billie Holiday. Kirk’s lead here is splendidly economical and yet moving and Flanagan appropriately hands in an elegiac solo.

No one’s going to call this record a “must have” in the Impulse catalog and yet there are plenty of fine moments turned in by everyone involved and that includes Rudy Van Gelder.

Because the drummer is the leader, Van Gelder gives him a channel of his own (the right) and makes the kit big by swathing it in its own reverb and cranking up the levels higher than normal. The reverb and a bit of EQ also adds extra snap and crackle to Mr. Snap and Crackle’s kit. Flanagan holds sway centered on the stage and his piano is well recorded compared to many of Rudy’s efforts at the time and Kirk gets the left channel to himself, where his influence on Ian Anderson can easily be heard on “Snap Crackle.”

It may be just a pick up session, probably “out of an afternoon” literally, but the odd but great sonics and inspired soloing mark this as a great listen and one that will bring pleasure over the long haul.