031: Seven ‘50s Jazz Albums

Some names you definitely know and others you may not!

Please forgive me for my minor disappearance! I made too many commitments last month, but I’m taking it a little easier in April. One of those commitments involved spending a lot of time with ‘50s jazz, so I’m sharing some of my findings by presenting seven albums that have stayed with me since working on that project. Let’s get to it.

Ray Bryant Trio
Ray Bryant Trio (Prestige, 1957)

Pianist Ray Bryant is someone I had absolutely never heard of, and piano trios are not usually my favorite formation, so I was quite surprised by how instantly this album endeared itself to me. I was entranced from the jump on “Golden Earrings,” which has a kind of ineffably Lynchian quality to me in that it’s a little wistful and a little noir and I can pretty easily picture Audrey Horne dancing to it. It just gets better on the next track “Angel Eyes,” which opens with this wonderfully enigmatic melancholic little piano riff. The elegiac “Django,” a standard written by pianist John Lewis as a tribute to legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt, is also quite good.

Jimmy Giuffre
The Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet (Atlantic, 1956)
Tangents in Jazz (Capitol, 1956)

This dude, who was a clarinetist, saxophonist, composer, and arranger, is the sleeper hit of my time spent in the 1950s. I barely recognized his name, though somewhere in the recesses of my mind pulsed a vague sense of his association with cool jazz in a way that didn’t seem terribly relevant to my interests. I was right about the former but wrong about the latter! He made some curious and creative choices throughout his career (this piece about him by Nate Chinen is a good one), at times even approaching what you might call avant-garde. (He did play with Paul Bley¹, after all.)

I’ve chosen to highlight two of his albums: The Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet, on which said clarinet takes center stage and Tangents in Jazz, the rare ‘50s jazz set with no piano. In 1957, composer Gunther Schuller would coin the term “Third stream” to describe music that combines elements of jazz and classical, something Giuffre was definitely doing here and would continue to explore. My favorite such piece is the unconventional arrangement of “My Funny Valentine” for bassoon, oboe and English horn on Clarinet.

Clifford Jordan & John Gilmore
Blowing In From Chicago (Blue Note, 1957)

I’ve been a fan of tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan’s terrific hard bop since I happened upon a copy of his 1957 record Cliff Craft at a now-defunct record store in my neighborhood shortly after they had picked up a really nice Blue Note haul. Blowing In From Chicago is notable because it’s excellent but also because Jordan is joined as leader of the session by fellow saxophonist John Gilmore, best known as an early important long-time member of the Sun Ra Arkestra. He took over as leader when Ra ascended in 1993, but unfortunately died only two years later. That’s when Marshall Allen took over, and he’s remarkably still at it now, at the tender age of 100.

This is Gilmore’s only album as co-leader, and one of only 11 albums he appeared on outside the Sun Ra universe, compared to 30+ albums with the Arkestra. Jordan and Gilmore are both wonderful here, trading lines with marvelous and distinctive energy. The ensemble is a great one: Horace Silver on piano, Curly Russell on bass, and Art Blakey on drums (there’s an exceptionally sick solo at the end of “Status Quo”). Exemplary of the album’s freewheeling heat is the ensemble’s wonderful take on the Charlie Parker tune “Billie’s Bounce.” I also dig “Bo-Till” and “Blue Lights,” the latter of which is some seriously excellent nightclub noir jazz, with a delightful solo from Silver in the middle.

The Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn (Atlantic, 1956)

Giuffre rears his head again, appearing on three songs with the Modern Jazz Quartet, a combo consisting of Milt Jackson (vibraphone), John Lewis (piano), Percy Heath (bass), and Connie Kay (drums). I’m familiar with Bags² not only because I am desperately fond of the oft-maligned vibraphone but also because he’s a Detroiter! This group formed out of Dizzy Gillespie's big band’s rhythm section and carved a niche for themselves through an elegant blend of the baroque with blues. I’m not hugely familiar with their catalog but I instantly fell for this set of classical-inflected cool jazz and will be spending more time exploring their work. My two favorites here are the bluesy “Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West” and a wonderful variation of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” that belongs on all discerning holiday playlists.

John Coltrane / Bobby Jaspar / Idrees Sulieman / Webster Young
Interplay for 2 Trumpets and 2 Tenors (Prestige, 1957)

Here’s the name all of you definitely know from the subtitle! I listened to a bunch of early Coltrane during this project, but the one that stood out the most is this swinging set of hard bop tunes from 1957, with some genuinely unique instrumentation between the four horns and Kenny Burrell’s guitar. My favorite track is easily “Soul Eyes,” the very first recording of a 17-minute ballad composed by pianist Mal Waldron with Trane in mind. He recorded a much shorter version of it on his 1962 album Coltrane, after which it would go on to become a jazz standard. One last thing here: sick cover art, the rare non-Blue Note Reid Miles³!

Clifford Brown & Max Roach
Clifford Brown & Max Roach (Capitol, 1954)

In the mid-1950s, the brilliant drummer Max Roach formed a quintet with the equally wonderful trumpeter Clifford Brown. They recorded a handful of excellent albums before Brown’s seriously tragic car crash-caused death at the age of 25.⁴ His career didn’t even last half a decade, but his legacy as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters was nevertheless cemented. This album is a great introduction to his warm, full sound, perfectly paired with Roach’s composed ferocity. Saxophonist Harold Land is as vital as the leaders, swinging sweetly and urgently on Brown originals “Joy Spring” and “The Blues Walk,” but the album’s best track might be album opener “Delilah,” the ensemble’s take on the theme song for the Cecil B. DeMille film Samson and Delilah. Seems like a remarkably odd choice but their version is pitch perfect bop, the kind of song you want to hear over and over again.

Odds and Ends

And here’s some of the other work I’ve been up to:

• I had the pleasure of writing the bio for Land’s End Eternal, the new album of prismatically beautiful music from the brilliant saxophonist and composer Cole Pulice, out May 9th!

• For Maggot Brain 19, I profiled bassoonist Joy Guidry, who you might recognize from the list of my favorite jazz albums of 2024. I’m obsessed with her music and it behooves you all to know she has a terrific new album of experimental ambient coming soon: Five Prayers, out on May 16.

• I reviewed Flora, a new reissue of a posthumous album from environmental music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura, which you can read here. (Most of my stuff for Uncut is print-only, but lead reviews get posted to the website sometimes!)

• Also for Uncut, I reviewed a new reissue of the music of Julee Cruise: Fall_Float_Love (Works 1989-1998), which compiles her first two albums alongside additional singles and remixes. Writing about Cruise is an opportunity to write about Lynch, and I probably don’t need to tell you how much that means to me.

Now Reading: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
Just Watched: Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)

1. This photo should be adapted into a movie by the Coen Brothers: from left, Carla Bley, Paul Bley, Steve Swallow, Jimmy Giuffre, and Juanita Giuffre in Germany in 1961.

2. They called Milt Jackson Bags because of the bags under his eyes. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that delights me as a person who feels overly attached to the bags under her own eyes. It also feels like an invention of my boy Pynchon.

3. Reid Miles was probably the single most distinctive visual voice for midcentury jazz and he barely even liked the genre! He gave away or sold most of the copies of the albums he was given. Unbelievable!!!

4. He was on the way to a gig with fellow quintet member Richie Powell (brother of legendary pianist Bud Powell) and Powell’s wife, Nancy. She was behind the wheel and lost control while driving at night in the rain. All three of them died in the accident. It’s so sad!