Cashbox : 07/02/1955

Clark Terry, long a musician’s musician, with training that had him in the forefront of such bands as Hampton, Barnet, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, showcases his talents in the first LP devoted in the main to the Terry trumpet. Of course, Terry couldn’t shine without the devoted support of such artists as Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Horace Silver, piano; Oscar Pettiford, cello and bass; Art Blakey, drums; and Cecil Payne on the baritone sax along with Wendell Marshall on the bass. The group sparkles as they team up on sometimes sprightly modern, paced at breakneck tempo and on sometimes warm, moody and compelling music. The album should help establish Terry with the fans.

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Minneapolis Spokesman
J. Henry Randall : 06/24/1955

Ex-Hampton, Basie, Ellington sideman Clark Terry has finally come into his own as an individual star, particularly of the modern idiom. Utilizing arrangements by Quincy Jones, Clark leads a septet in some unusual stuff – like, for example, Swahili, an oriental item which alternately roars and slumbers excitingly. All items in the album, Clark Terry are originals, products of Clark and Jones – Double Play, Slow Boat, Co-Op, Kitten, The Countess, Tums and Chuckles.

One of the striking things about Terry’s trumpeting is that his style in spots is akin to that of Rex Stewart, another ex-Ellingtonian.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 07/16/1955

A forceful, and occasionally stunning, record that has everything that most modern small-band dates lack: motion, excitement, color, and muscle. All the soloists, who number Horace Silver, Jimmy Cleveland, O. Pettiford, Wendell Marshall, Cecil Payne, and Art Blakey, are full of bruff and go, with Terry, a kind of Simonized Rex Stewart, Cleveland, a giant new trombonist, Blakey, and the two bassmen coming through particularly well. Three of the originals are by Quincy Jones and the other five by Terry.

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Down Beat : 07/27/1955
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

A sparkling, swinging session on which the Ellington trumpeter is joined by Cecil Payne, baritone; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Horace Silver, piano; Oscar Pettiford, cello and bass; Wendell Marshall, bass; Art Blakey, drums. Quincy Jones wrote three of the originals. Clark Terry is responsible for Kitten, Showboat, and Chuckles; he co-authored Co-Op with Rick Henderson; he shared the writing on The Countess with Freddie Greene. There’s a fairly wide variety of lines and moods throughout, and all of the writing is conducive to swinging.

Outstanding soloists are Clark (who has never sounded, on records, so consistently imaginative, so generally in control of his highly personal range of tonal effects) and the brilliant Cleveland. The rhythm section is a steady gas. For one thing, this LP is a fine document for those enthusiasts who have been lauding Terry’s “live” playing in recent years, explaining that “records can’t catch him somehow.” They have now. Highly recommend. First-rate recording quality.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

It might be said that the three prerequisites for jazz improvisation are sincerity, ability and originality. Some of our contemporaries who have only the first of these virtues can be numbered among the most well-meaning incompetents on earth. Many who possess solely the second are technical giants and esthetic dwarfs. Those who claim nothing but the third virtue are as much use as a coloratura soprano with laryngitis. The musicians gifted with all three characteristics are few and far between. Among them is Clark Terry.

This is the first time Clark has had a whole LP in which to express himself. By the time you have heard it all, if you did know it before, you will be convinced that this is one trumpet player who not only plays as he feels, not only has completely command of his instrument, but also has something to say that is purely and delightfully personal. In the future, it will never take you more than 16 bars of any Terry solo to enable you to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt who is playing.

The man who combined these rare virtues was born in St. louis in December, 1920. At the age of 15 he joined a local drum and bugle corps; studying with the band teacher at his high school, he majored on valve trombone. Not very much was known of Clark before World War II interrupted his fledgling career as a trumpet star. It was in the all-star band at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Chicago, playing under the leadership of alto saxophonist Willie Smith, that he first attracted the excited comment of fellow-musicians.

After being discharged in 1945 Clark spent three fast and furious weeks the Lionel Hampton organization, after which, home in St. Louis, he spent 18 months with a band led by George Hudson. A year in California, during most of which he worked with Charlie Barnet, was followed by short stints with Eddie (Cleanhead) Vinson and Charlie Ventura; then Clark was back in the Hudson band for a while until the call came from Count Basie. The Basie era, beginning in 1948, brought Clark’s fresh and delightful sound to jazz audiences, first in the big band and then in the octet with which the Count traveled in 1950-51. In November, 1951 Clark Terry joined Duke Ellington‘s orchestra. Those who have heard him in his years with the Duke have commented on the resemblance in style to an earlier Ellingtonian, Rex Stewart, notably in the use of the stifled tone and half-depressed valve effects that distinguish his sound from that of all other modern trumpet stylists.

The eight performances on this LP are mainly the products of a conference between Clark and arranger Quincy Jones held last New Year’s Eve, when the evening was devoted to cerebration rather than celebration. On Jan. 4, 1955, the records were made in New York with the following personnel:

Clark Terry, trumpet; Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Horace Silver, piano; Oscar Pettiford, cello and bass; Wendell Marshall, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

Swahili, a minor-key Quincy Jones opus, build up a mood of rising intensity with considerable help from Art Blakey. A fascinating effect is the repeated pedal-point idea established by Oscar’s cello against Clark’s short, stabbing trumpet notes.

Quincy wrote Double Play as a two-bass vehicle for Pettiford and Wendell Marshall, both of whom were Clark’s colleagues in the Ellington orchestra at different times. In case you’re confused by the solo sequence you can assume that Oscar takes the first solo and that they alternate in eight-bar passages, later shortening to four-bar trades.

Slow Boat is a simple blues theme with a rhythm-and-blues quality in which Oscar’s pizzicato cello again comes to the forefront and Clark’s rubato ease is particularly noteworthy.

Co-Op is so called because it was co-authorized by Clark and his alto-playing fellow-Ellingtonian, Rick Henderson. It’s a 32-bar theme in which Jimmy Cleveland’s trombone work is out-standing.

On Kitten, a fast 12-bar blues theme, there is a wild muted trombone solo by Cleveland that will leave you, and must certainly have left him, breathless. The Nashville flash plays with such phenomenal dexterity that you would swear he must be using a valve trombone – nobody could manipulate a sliphorn that fast. But somebody can and does. Listen again! Cecil Payne’s solo follows, pursued by contributions from Clark, Horace, and Oscar on bass; then while Art carries on at the drums, Wendell Marshall takes over the bass to enable Oscar to move to his cello, on which he indulges in some four-bar chasing with Clark.

The Countess is a theme Clark and guitarist Freddie Greene dreamed up when they were working together in the small Count Basie band in 1951. Oscar’s cello is again featured.

The slow, pretty Tuma is a Quincy Jones vehicle for an unusual aspect of the Terry talent, in which he revived what was known many years ago as the “wa-wa” trumpet style, bringing it emphatically up to date to fit the lyrical mood of the theme.

Chuckles is the racehorse that brings the date to a flying finish – about 85 bars a minute, as we clocked it, but not too fast for the facile folk involved to get in some inspired improvisation. Again the 12-bar blues provides the firm track for the race.

It’s good to hear, via this set, that Clark Terry is at long last finding his place in the recording combo scene. It’s a safe bet, too, that his work on these sides will push him several notches closer to the top in next year’s jazz polls. Just goes to show you that sincerity, ability and originality, sooner or later, are bound to pay off.