Album Reviews

Elvis Costello “borrowed” the cover of this album for his Almost Blue (F-Beat XXLP13) but there the resemblance ends, not only between Costello’s countrified Nashville tribute and this one, but between this one and the usual Blue Note fare.

Burrell’s Midnight Blue is a cool, introspective, urban blues set that sounds like a late evening, informal, intimate after-hours jam session performed for the pleasures of the players.

It’s laid back and lurking in the dark just out of the streetlight’s range. This is the blues of cool resignation not hot pain, built from meshing cooperation and not heated cutting or competition.

Backed by Stanley Turrentine on lilting, tenor sax, Bill English on drums, Major Holley Jr. on bass and, adding a latin flair, Ray Baretto on conga, Burrell lays down economical curly licks punctuated by choppy comps played on a hollow bodied electric through a tubey-sounding amplifier.

Burrell’s playing is nimble, economical and all about subtle touch. Turrentine responds with sympathetic, introspective lines that tread lightly around Burrell’s. Listen to the two of them hit it off on “Wavy Gravy” (did the Woodstock character take his name from this track?) as Turrentine mirrors Burrell’s lines melodically and dynamically—something this extraordinary-sounding double 45 communicates in no uncertain terms compared to the 33 1/3 original.

With Rudy Van Gelder’s one Achilles heel missing from the mix (the piano), the recording is vivid, colorful, three dimensional, transparent and downright tactile. Burrell gets his own channel on the left shared occasionally with Barretto’s congas, while Turrentine and English get the right with Holley Jr. sitting in between.

Once you get into the swing of the consistently cool grooves you just want to stay there, which makes the four side changes here more painful than on some of the other Blue Note double 45s. No matter, luxuriating in the big, warm, soft yet detailed sound is easily worth the get-up-and-turn-it-over-effort. A highly recommended Blue Note reissue.