Can there be many more musicians whose jazz credentials have influenced popular music while retaining their pedigree as effectively as tenor saxophonist Benny Golson’s? The compositional impetus behind Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at their original best, his work can never be underrated, as the second volume of his Golden Standards albums for Arkadia demonstrates at every turn.
Well, almost. Taken from recordings at different times, the album spills more Golson gems on to the velvet. The one reservation is with a live recording of Stablemates, which straggles beyond Golson’s usual formal discipline, probably as a crowd-pleaser, with its late and lengthy sax-drums joust between the leader and Carl Allen.
Two slow numbers would be enough to make up for that: One Day Forever in a Golson arrangement and featuring a reclining vocal by Shirley Horn that at one point almost stutters into sprechgesang-like speech as well as a string orchestra that’s kept tastefully at bay; and a sublime version of I Remember Clifford, another live recording in which Golson takes complete charge to create a hushed elegy in extenso, with no concession to the audience or to any solo aspirations by the quartet.
These tracks are all small combo – quartet, sextet, one quintet alone and one quintet with strings (and oboe) – and are the best advertisement there could be for Golson’s magisterial stature, from the slippery eloquence of a Lester Young in Touch Me Lightly to the rocking-chair funkiness of Mississippi Windows, and taking in hard-bop’s spluttering dexterity. They include the presence of well-known Golson stablemates – trombonist Curtis Fuller and trumpeter Art Farmer – and not forgetting pianists Geoff Keezer and Kevin Hays, bassist Dwayne Burns, and the ubiquitous Allen, who everywhere does Golson a favour by not trying to be as incendiary as Blakey.
But, being all Arkadia recordings, there’s no room for essential Jazz Messengers charts.
Discography
(1) Along Came Betty; (2) Stablemates; (3) One Day, Forever; (4) Touch Me Lightly; (5) Whisper Not; (6) Mississippi Windows; (1) Are You Real; (7) I Remember Clifford; (1) Killer Joe (52.49)
(1) Golson (ts); Art Farmer (t); Curtis Fuller (tb); Geoff Keezer (p); Dwayne Burns (b); Carl Allen (d). Germany/Switzerland/New York, May 1996-September 1999.
(2) Farmer, Fuller and Keezer out; Kevin Hays in.
(3) Burns, Hays out; Shirley Horn (v); Mulgrew Miller (p); Ron Carter (b) and string orchestra in. Golson (ts, arr).
(4) Allen, Horn, Carter, Miller and orchestra out; Burns, Mike LeDonne (p) and Joe Farnsworth (d) in.
(5) LeDonne and Farnsworth out; Allen and Hays in.
(6) Burns, Allen, Hays out; Nat Adderley (t); Monty Alexander (p); Ray Drummond (b) and Marvin “Smitty” Smith (d) in.
(7) Farmer, Fuller, Keezer out, Hays in.
Arkadia Records #70747
