Album Reviews

Speakers Corner has unearthed an unlikely gem here: a 1957 blues set by a stellar assemblage of jazz musicians  that's been obscured by time—at least I've never seen or heard of it before.

Jazz is more head and blues is more body so often when jazz musicians play the blues it sounds precious or condescending.

Speakers Corner has unearthed an unlikely gem here: a 1957 blues set by a stellar assemblage of jazz musicians  that's been obscured by time—at least I've never seen or heard of it before.

Jazz is more head and blues is more body so often when jazz musicians play the blues it sounds precious or condescending.

Here, jazz guitarist Herb Ellis leads a group that features Stan Getz, Roy Eldridge, Ray Brown and drummer Stan Levey. The form is always blues but sometimes it sounds more like big band jazz transcribed for "bluesy" small ensemble and that’s when it doesn’t sound like a blues album but even then its fun because it swings.

Ellis’s blues playing will not remind you of (name your favorite blues guitarist) or of any gritty “name” blues player any more than Paul Desmond could begin to sound like Clarence were he to sit in with Bruce. 

Ellis plays cleanly, neatly, modestly and introspectively, using his jazz instincts to form along blues lines without really fully crossing over into the genre as I understand it. Ellis presents  the form as a series of deeply felt quotes more than as something he’s inhabiting.

Nat Hentoff’s notes are kind of defensive. He says the blues can’t be forced and then lists some jazz guys who “have it” like Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and Barney Kessel or Herb Ellis. “Herb has it” Hentoff continues. Well really, if you have to proclaim it in the liner notes then that’s because you’re feeling as if you have to counter a pre-conception.

Don’t have any coming in to this and you’re sure to enjoy it for the music and the sound. Eldridge always sounds like a big band trumpeter but Stan Getz really makes this set work by playing like a beach bum blues hipster who does let it all hang out—at least some of the time. Getz gets downright nasty

When you get to “Patti Cake,” the second tune on side two you’ll hear more an early 50’s bop riff based tune until Getz takes it right to the boastful street. Even though Ellis’ playing is a main attraction, I think Getz steals the show, presenting a side of himself many have never heard.

The mono recording is spectacularly natural and the mix is superb— expertly layering naturally recorded instruments in three-dimensional space. An unlikely gem? Yes! But easy to like too.