Blue and Sentimental
| Blue and Sentimental | ||||
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| Ike Quebec's studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Blue note | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
6 (LP) / 8 (CD) |
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running time |
39:36 (LP) / 50:36 (CD) |
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Studio (s) |
Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey |
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Blue and Sentimental is a jazz album by Ike Quebec , recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs , New Jersey on December 16 and 23, 1961 and released in 1962 on Blue Note Records .
The album
For the Blue Note label, 1962 was not only the start for newcomers like Freddie Hubbard , Grant Green or Stanley Turrentine , wrote the critic Ira Gitler in the liner notes of the original album, but also the comeback of veterans of the 1940s like Dexter Gordon ( Doin 'Alright ), Leo Parker and last but not least Ike Quebec. The tenor saxophonist had not recorded for Alfred Lion's label since the mid-1940s , but remained with him as an A&R and talent scout in the 1950s .
Finally, in 1959/69, Lion had him record a few 45s singles for the booming soul jazz market; In 1961, the album Heavy Soul followed with organist Freddie Roach and bassist Milt Hinton , a friend from their time together at Cab Calloway . The breakthrough came with Blue and Sentimental , which was recorded in two sessions in December 1961 and which ultimately became Ike Quebec's most successful album, especially thanks to the title track. The saxophonist could hardly experience this; Quebec died of lung cancer on January 16, 1963 .
For the album, which was the first Blue Note production in Rudy Van Gelders new studio in Englewood Cliffs, the line-up of his band was completely changed; instead of the organ, the guitar was added, played by the Blue Note young star Grant Green, who was given a lot of solo freedom. The rhythm section was formed by two musicians from the Miles Davis band at the time, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones .
Ike Quebec, who named Coleman Hawkins , Ben Webster and Stan Getz as his favorite musicians in an interview with Leonard Feather in 1954 , chose a ballads and standards program for the December session with Green that was particularly close to Hawkins and Webster revealed, but also showed influences from Sonny Rollins or Gene Ammons , says Ira Gitler. Quebec played a program of three ballads with the title track "Blue and Sentimental", which Count Basie wrote in 1939, the then rarely played ballad from the swing era of the 1940s "Don't Take Your Love from Me" and "Count Every Star".
The quartet also played the blues "Blues for Charlie" contributed by Grant Green, their bow to his great idol Charlie Christian and Quebecs on a simple riff-based track "Minor Impulse" that is kept at a medium tempo.
Another Quebec composition was "Like," a "lively swinger" "with a straight-ahead game that is heavily driven by Chambers and Jones."
At the December 16 session, two other covers of Standards, Harold were made Arlen's “That Old Black Magic” and Cole Porter's “It's All Right with Me”, which were not used on the original LP (BLP 4098) and only appeared on the CD edition.
Reception of the album
The All Music Guide rated Blue and Sentimental with the highest grade; the comeback album from 1962 has become something like "his trademark, a great sensual atmosphere in which happy blues numbers alternate with painfully romantic ballads". There is no shortage of this in Ike Quebec's other Blue Notes sessions, “but Blue and Sentimental is the most perfect album of these . Quebec appears as a master of mood and atmosphere; In addition, Quebec's tender tenor sound is given more space by the economical accompaniment without the use of a piano. Grant Green's solos are said to be of wonderful taste and elegance ”. His rendition of the Count Basie title track is a classic, and the other standard "Don't Take Your Love From Me" is similarly melancholy. Throughout, “Quebec remains the exemplary seducer who, in an impressive way, always finds the right balance between sophistication and originality, between confidence and vulnerability. Blue and Sentimental is a quiet, unfortunately completely underrated masterpiece. "
Richard Cook and Brian Morton describe in their Penguin Guide to Jazz Ike Quebec as a player "with a beautiful, smooth tone and an innate melodic feeling, who negotiates standards with an uncomplicatedness and without arrogance that can be called refreshing and almost therapeutic"; Blue and Sentimental is an "excellent place (to deal with his work)".
Brian Priestley , for whom Ike Quebec was a link between mainstream jazz of the 50s and the then emerging soul jazz of the early 60s, described Blue and Sentimental as "the authoritative work of the saxophonist, it was enough to win every listener for him".
The titles
- Ike Quebec - Blue And Sentimental (Blue Note BLP 4098, BST 84098, CDP 7 84098-2)
- Blue and Sentimental (Basie / Livingstone / Daniel) -7: 26
- Minor Impulse (Quebec) - 6:33
- Don't Take Your Love From Me (Henry Nemo) - 7:02
- Blues For Charlie (g. Green) - 6:47
- Like (Quebec) - 5:19
- That Old Magic (H. Arlen / Johnny Mercer ) - 4:50 [bonus track]
- It's All Right With Me (Porter) - 6:03 [bonus track]
- Count Every Star (B. Coquatrix / S. Gallop) - 6:16
The cover design and the cover photo was done by Reid Miles .
The sessions
- Ike Quebec Quartet - Ike Quebec, Grant Green, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones (d)
- Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 16, 1961
tk.3 - Like
tk.4 - Don't Take Your Love From Me
tk.15 - Minor Impulse
tk.17 - Blues For Charlie
tk.22 - That Old Magic
tk.26 - It's All Right With Me
tk.28 - Blue And Sentimental
- Grant Green Quartet w. Ike Quebec - Ike Quebec, Sonny Clark, Grant Green, Sam Jones, Louis Hayes
- Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, December 23, 1961
tk. 24 - Count Every Star
literature
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz. 1800 bands and artists from the beginning until today. 2nd, expanded and updated edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-01892-X .
- Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
- Ira Gitler: liner notes. 1962.
Web links
Notes and individual references
- ↑ The cover laylout by Reid Miles deviates from the title and lists it as Blue & Sentimental .
- ↑ The two musicians were discovered by Ike Quebec for Blue Note; see. Cook / Morton., 8th edition. P. 1085.
- ↑ Back then on Blue Note Blue Harlem , at that time a juke box hit, also Facin 'the Face, Mad About You , Tiny's Exercise and other titles, made with Ram Ramirez (p) Tiny Grimes (g), Milt Hinton (b) , JC Heard (d) (July 18, 1944) and Jonah Jones (tp), Tyree Glenn (tb), Ram Ramirez (p), Tiny Grimes (g), Oscar Pettiford (b), JC Heard (d) ( September 25, 1944). They later appeared on The Complete Blue Note Forties Recordings Of Ike Quebec And John Hardee (Mosaic MR4-107, MD3-107); see. jazzdisco.org.
- ↑ They later appeared on CD as The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions Of Ike Quebec on Mosaic Records ; see. jazzdisco.org.
- ↑ Shortly before, Quebec had recorded the album It Might As Well be Spring (BLP 4105) with Freddie Roach, Hinton and Al Harewood ; however, it did not appear until after Blue and Sentimental . on the Japanese blue note.
- ↑ cit. after Gitler, liner notes
- ↑ Quoted from Gitler.
- ↑ Quotes from Allmusic.
- ↑ Cook and Morton, 8th ed., P. 1085.
- ↑ Brian Pristley, S. 524th
- ↑ During the session - but without Quebec - the titles Moon River , On Green Dolphin Street and What Is This Thing Called Love? recorded; see. jazzdisco.org.