HARD BOP ORIGINS: CLIFFORD BROWN/MAX ROACH QUINTET

Calvin H. Neal, Jr.

January 8, 2017

         

Hard bop was the mainstream sound of jazz starting in 1954 until the end of the 1960's. An outgrowth of the bop being played by Dizzy and Bird of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, hard bop's  more lyrical, gospel inflected brand of jazz was starting to take a hold by 1954. A recorded session that is more hard bop than the bop of old, comes from a live Blue Note recording in 1954. On the night of  February 21, 1954, Blue Note Records recorded a live session at New York’s famed Birdland Club, which featured Art Blakey and his Quintet. Recorded live by Rudy Van Gelder, this night’s  music, released as Art Blakey Quintet: A Night At Birdland Vols. 1 & 2, harkened the dawn of the hard bop era. That night, the Art Blakey Quintet consisted of a front line of alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, who would becoming one of Blue Notes longest signed recording artist, and the lamentable trumpet sensation, Clifford Brown, who would also prove to be a driving force behind the birth of hard bop. Brown demonstrates why he was the rising star among trumpeters. His sound was articulate, muscular and fluent. Brown with his fiery new sound and youth was seemingly drawing the veterans away from bebop and closer to this “new thing”. The rhythm section featured pianist Horace Silver,  (at this time Blakey’s collaborator, and would become one of the leading exponents of hard bop, leading his own groups after his 1956 split from Blakey), bassist Curly Russell and Blakey on drums. 

During the same time of Clifford Brown’s work with Blakey, in Los Angeles, jazz concert promoter Gene Norman had made an offer to drummer Max Roach to promote a tour of Roach and a group. On the recommendation of many, including Art Blakey, Roach extended an offer to Brown to co lead a quintet with him. Brown readily accepted Roach’s offer and he along with proposed front line partner, saxophonist Sonny Stitt, flew to California to join Roach. The sax spot in the group went thru a few changes during the group’s duration. Stitt lasted less than two months, apparently preferring the freedom of being a solo. By the time of the group’s first recording, Los Angeles based tenor man Teddy Edwards had joined. On the Gene Norman promoted concert, recorded live at The California Club in Los Angeles in April 1954, the Brown/Roach group consisted of Brown, Roach, Edwards and pianist Carl Perkins and George Bledsoe on bass. A new direction in jazz is apparent even from the less than perfect recordings that exist. When the quintet recorded next, a retooling of musicians had taken place. For the historic, marathon sessions that were to take place in August 1954, Edwards had been replaced by another California resident in the talented Harold Land. Richie Powell (brother of pianist Bud Powell) and George Morrow were now on piano and bass, respectively. From August 2, 3, 5 & 6 1954 in the Los Angeles studios of Capitol and in New York on February 23-25, 1955, the group recorded the first hard bop and proved that the sound was a force to be reckoned with. Brown and Land made a commanding front line and are fresh and new on Land’s composition, Land’s End, and the Brown penned, George’s Dilemma. Other Brown compositions from the session include, Daahoud, Joy Spring and Sweet Clifford, which have become jazz standards. 

The material was released on EmArcy records as, Brown and Roach Incorporated, from the August 1954 sessions and A Study In Brown, taken from the New York 1955 recordings. Essential Jazz Released a 2-cd set, Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet w/ Harold Land: Complete Studio Recording, in 2006 that includes all the music from the August 1954 and February 1955 sessions. The cd set which  includes an informative 12 page booklet discussing the musicians and the sessions, is a must have for hard bop and Brown, Roach and/or Land fans. These recordings can be seen as the actual birth of hard bop. The Brown/Roach group was also the driving force behind a live session headlined by vocal legend Dinah Washington. Dinah Jams, recorded in front of a live studio audience on August 14, 1954 in Los Angeles, found the Brown/Roach quintet backing Washington and accompanied by jazz all stars including trumpeters Clark Terry and Maynard Ferguson, herb Geller on alto sax, pianist Junior Mance and Keter Betts on bass. Dinah shines on Gershwin’s, Summertime, the Hammerstein/Romberg standard, Lover Come Back To Me and Cole Porter’s timeless, I Got You Under My Skin, but is nearly outshined by the band. Harold Land left the group in may 1955 to attend to “family matters”. His final recording with the quintet was A May 6, 1955 concert at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall. Beginning on January 4 and continuing February 16 & 7, 1956 again at New York’s Capitol Studios, Brown & Roach recorded their latest project the historic   

At Basin St. Historic in the fact that the tenor chair was now helmed by firebrand tenor man Sonny Rollins and that this was the only recording of Rollins as a member of this group. He did record with this group under his own name, on the March 22 1956 recorded Prestige release Sonny Rollins Plus 4.  As good as Brown and Land were together, Brown and Rollins were the most formidable front line in jazz and were spreading the gospel of hard bop easily.  On the Basin St. recording, Brown and Rollins are in fine form definitely speaking in the hard bop idiom on I’ll Remember April; Brown is crisp and muscular while Rollins is fierce yet restrained. These two 25 year olds were very worthy of being the harbingers of the new jazz.  A few months later on June 26, Clifford Brown, Richie Powell and Powell’s wife Nancy were killed in a single car accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Inclement weather was determined to be a factor in the accident.  After the deaths of Brown and Powell, Roach enlisted the services of friend, trumpeter Kenny Dorham and brought Philly native Ray Bryant into the piano spot. Rollins stayed with Roach until late 1957, when he was replaced by Hank Mobley and on the new group, without piano featured Roach, Dorham, Mobley and bassist George Morrow recorded Max Roach 4 & More, recorded December 20 & 23, 1957. In April 1958 Memphis tenor man George Coleman replaced Mobley. In June of the same year, Roach began to record with another supremely talented yet ill-fated trumpeter in Coleman’s childhood friend, Booker Little. Little, who died tragically in October 1961 of uremia at age 23, recorded as a member of Roach’s group from June 1958 until January 1959.  Little’s final recordings were the August 1,3,8 & 9, 1961 sessions for Roach’s Percussion Bittersweet, for Impulse.

As much as history wants to paint the East Coast as the cradle of hard bop, California and the West Coast played  a role in the birth and evolution of hard bop that is hardly spoken of.