Cashbox : July, 1961

Tenor saxist Curtis Amy has become a leading figure in the new “return to roots” movement on the west coast, speaking a virile, muscular blues language. His previous Pacific Jazz album (with Paul Bryant) went a long way in establishing his popularity and this set, on which he shares leader chores with drummer Frank Butler, will well add to his audience. Trumpeter Carmell Jones also distinguishes himself in this idiom. It’s truly a “groovin'” session.

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American Record Guide
Don Heckman : Apri, 1962
(Also a review of PJ-23 – Les McCann Presents, PJ-24 – Wild, and PJ-26 – Meetin’ Here)

With these four albums, Pacific Jazz moves to duplicate the success that Riverside Records has had with a saturation campaign of “Soul Jazz”. The quality differs markedly throughout, from the McCann-influenced quasi-spiritualism of “Groove” Holmes to the superb rhythm playing of Frank Butler, drums, Jimmy Bond, bass, and Frank Strazzeri, piano, on the Groovin’ Blue recording. Both the Holmes and Wrice recordings use organ instead of bass and the resulting sound is about as muddy as a Bach toccata on a parlor Hammond. The Holmes date, however, is saved, at least for a few moments by the presence of Ben Webster. The “big, big sound” of Larry “Wild” Wrice is made even bigger by the fact that one microphone responds as though it were nestled inside of Wrice’s snare drum. But don’t look for any music, because there’s none to be found

Aside from its really cooking rhythm section, the Groovin’ Blue album features new star trumpeter Carmell Jones. Although he is a brilliant technician, Jones is still very much in the shadow of Clifford Brown, and in fact not really up to the level of some of Brownie’s younger followers. I rather suspect that if Jones had migrated to New York instead of L.A. his playing would have drawn considerably less attention. At the very least, though, he indicates an ability that might bear some watching for the future. Curtis Amy’s strongly declamatory tenor is present both on this recording and on Meetin’ Here. Amy is well-versed well-versed in the stylistic line that flows from rhythm and blues through the contemporary gospel-tinged jazz, and his compositions on both dates indicate a respectable talent for thinking up blues lines.

Obviously there isn’t a great deal in any of this to get very excited about. Pacific’s soul blanket, while apparently intended to be as far-reaching as Riverside’s, lacks the solid personnel that is at the disposal of the New York company.

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HiFi / Stereo Review
Nat Hentoff : October, 1961
Recording of Special Merit

Interest: Hot modern jazz
Performance: The trumpet is a comer
Recording: Very good
Stereo Quality: Competent

This is a good collection of nonexperimental modern jazz that is neither self-consciously soulful nor emotionally withdrawn. Curtis Amy is a vigorous, hard-swinging tenor player, if not an especially original one, and Frank Butler is a deft, imaginative, and tasteful drummer. The major horn talent is Carmell Jones, who plays with a warm, singing tone and whose ability at melodic improvisation is most impressive. The rest of the rhythm section is fully integrated, and both pianist Frank Strazzeri and vibist Bobby Hutcherson play with spare, limber decisiveness.

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Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA)
Russ Wilson : 04/16/1961
Needle Talk: The Heat’s On In L.A. Recording Studios

Time was when practically the only jazz sounds to emanate from Los Angeles recording studios were cool, contrived and cerebral. But now the pendulum is swinging the other way. A fine example of the new trend is afforded by Groovin’ Blue Pacific Jazz which has tenorist Curtis Amy and drummer Frank Butler as co-leaders of a sextet. One of the album’s highlights is the playing of trumpeter Carmell, Jones, a West Coast newcomer whose clean sound, flowing lines and fine conception are noteworthy. Vibist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Frank Strazzeri and bassist Jimmy Bond make valuable contributions. Amy wrote all the tunes of which the bouncy Gone Into It and a lovely ballad, Beautiful You, are standouts.

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Independent Star-News (Pasadena, CA)
Bill Yaryan : 05/07/1961

Local interest in this set is stimulated by the appearance of a John Muir graduate, Bobby Hutcherson, who stands out in Beautiful You” but is not allowed the full play in the remaining tunes that his talent dictates.

In spite of this omission, the album has a unique odor to it, due lo the quality of Amy’s compositions and the recording debut of trumpeter Jones. According to the album notes, the sextet’s sound Is a good progression from the sterile west coast jazz of the early 1950’s. Although the over worked term “soul” jazz is left out, it is just this feeling and warmth of the group that gives it the necessary spunk to rise above the overworked jazz recording field.

Amy is a full-blown soloist without the squeal effects prominent of late. He is complemented by the horn quality of Butler’s drums and the continuing drive of Bond and Strazzeri. All certainly followed the advice of the lyricist who wrote: “You gotta have heart.”

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San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, CA)
C.H. Garrigues : 07/09/1961

There is much talent displayed here. Amy is a writer and tenor performer of whom much will be heard; though a veritable newcomer he would rank already with all but the greatest of the eastern school.

Carmell Jones, the trumpeter, is a new man on the scene: he is brilliant, technically superior to most, and seems destined to set a style which owes little to either the Gillespie or Davis schools of trumpeting.

Vibesman Bobby Hutcherson made his debut with Les McCann and again displays a flowing, melodic style which does all that a vibes set should do: coloring without dominating the timbre of the ensemble.

As a whole, the album suffers somewhat from a derivative quality.

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Valley News (Van Nuys, CA)
Mike Davenport : 04/13/1961

There is a dearth in Los Angeles of really good neo-bop groups of the type that is most prevalent on the East Coast. It’s not that the musicians aren’t here, it’s just that there are not enough clubs to support neo-bop groups.

The musicians are scattered all over town, and ordinarily only get together for occasional recording sessions. Groovin’ Blue (Pacific Jazz PJ-19), is easily the finest hard jazz album to come out of the West Coast.

The group consists of Curtis Amy on tenor, Carmell Jones on trumpet, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Frank Strazzeri on piano, Jimmy Bond on bass and Frank Butler on drums.

Butler, Bond and Straz have worked together for several months at The Renaissance, and simply cut every other rhythm section in town. Butler (who co-led the date with Amy) is considered to be the best drummer on the coast.

Amy and Jones are superb throughout, especially Jones, who makes his recording debut here. His playing is reminiscent of Clifford Brown, but his tone is fuller and he exhibits more control. The group plays six compositions by Amy. With the exception of Beautiful You an expressive ballad, all are medium or fast tempo, My tavorite is Bobblin, done in a fast 6/8.

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Down Beat : 06/08/1961
John S. Wilson : 3 stars

Amy and Strazzeri are given the assignment on this disc of balancing two newcomers, Jones and Hutcherson. Neither of them, however, yet has a sufficiently forceful musical personality—not, at least, in these pieces—to carry the tentative, undeveloped playing of Jones and Hutcherson.

Amy has provided the group with a set of basic lines. All the selections are Amy originals. They are pleasant but lack variety, except for one ballad, Beautiful, which plods a listless path brightened only by a brief, lyrical appearance by Jones, his best spot in the set. Everybody seems happiest at a strong, swinging tempo, but this occurs only twice—Bobblin’ and the short Very Frank.

On the other pieces, Strazzeri, in his few opportunities, shows ideas and a sense of construction, Amy plays with a sinewy sound and a muscular attack but relies on a limited set of runs, while Jones and Hutcherson both indicate potential but do not seem to have sufficient assurance yet to step out and commit themselves to a forceful expression.

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Liner Notes by John William Hardy

The very controversial jazz movement on the west coast in the 1950’s was a beautiful one in certain musical ways and yet it failed for probably one reason. And that was that there was too little of the heart and spirit of the men in their music. That is to say, men such as Lennie Niehaus, Shorty Rogers, Johnny Grass and their colleagues were too involved in musical device gleaned from their classical teachers — device that they tried to adapt to the jazz idiom in an attempt to somehow extend its parameter in a wholly mechanical, methodological fashion. In their intellectual exuberance they were so intent on “doing something different” that they overlooked the possibility, from what we know of these fine musicians, that just being themselves would have produced the differences they sought. The whole value to jazz and to themselves would have been much greater and lasting.

The result was that only several years after a peak some noticeable changes began to occur, changes that are just now beginning to lend a somewhat more balanced character to the west coast jazz picture. It began when such musicians as Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Zoot Sims, and a few others who never seemed to fit comfortably into the emotionless circle anyway, went east or decided to stay there to relieve themselves in freer blowing circles. More entrenched men took one of two courses: Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Russ Freeman, Richie Kamuca, Art Pepper, and Paul Moer, to name examples, picked themselves up, turned themselves around and had a good long look; they discovered or rediscovered their emotions in the process and began to breathe some straightforwardness into their musical expression. The alternate course was oblivion in jazz, and not a few took this course.

Meanwhile, a sizeable underground of musicians in Los Angeles, who until now had been part of no “school,” to the sorrow of their stomachs and “chops,” began to be heard uptown instead of in the tiny bistros and at afterhours sessions. Men such as Harold Land, Teddy Edwards, Walter Norris, Ornette Coleman, and Curtis Amy began to produce brilliantly, bespeaking their years of spare living and time to grow casually in honesty and urgency of musical expression. Finally the picture began to be helped by the influx of new, oft-times unknown, jazzmen from the midwest and east, eager now that the pressure was off in the west to make themselves heard as part of the revitalized coast jazz scene. Jazz in the west was being reborn.

The end of this genesis is not yet complete, if we can judge from the week-to-week changes that are still taking place. But the reader of these lines holds a record that seems to be one of the more satisfying examples of the new atmosphere that pervades Los Angeles jazz.

Tenor Saxophonist Curtis Amy, co-leader herein, has been an “under-grounder” for most of his playing years. His first Lp on Pacific Jazz with organist Paul Bryant (PJ-9), is well into the successful jazz recording venture classification and reveals Curtis as a searingly urgent jazzman who attacks improvisation and the blues with predaceous zeal. He further declares in the present recording his devotion to the blues, but additionally stamps himself as a talented composer and an improvisor of quality in the more disciplined context of the present sextet. When I listen to Curtis play I firmly expect to hear notes replaced by words and phrases — it’s that phonetically expressive.

Certainly, considering his instrument, no less can be said of Amy’s co-leader on the date Frank Butler. The latter is one of the handful of drummers or musicians, for that matter, that although possessed with literally “too much” technique knows exactly how to ration it out so that the bubble of virtuosity instead of spilling its contents merely remains at absolute capacity and goes sailing along with all companions aboard. Moreover, as he has shown before, Butler can employ an astounding melodic feeling in his work, yet remain entirely true to the art of percussion. This is, by the way, Frank’s first role as a leader on record, although for the past few months he has assumed those chores more and more in personal appearances.

Frank and bassist Jimmy Bond separately or together have been two of the great joys of living jazz listeners in the west the past few years. Afforded in the last year the opportunity to work together frequently, Bond and Butler have grown and melded themselves into one of the strongest rhythm duos available anywhere — two men who musically challenge each other constantly, but at the same time blend and lift as one.

It is the pleasure of Pacific Jazz, finally, to introduce three excellent new performers to the jazz listener. Trumpeter Carmell Jones, 24, and a Kansas Citian, makes his recording debut a blazing one. Jones immigrated to Los Angeles from the midwest in August, last, at the encouragement of this writer and after German Jazz Critic Joachim Berendt, touring the U.S. seeking out jazz in its unexplored comers spoke glowingly of the Kansas City youth, whom he thought one of the best jazzmen he heard anywhere. Jones, a former student at Kansas University, is a player in the Clifford Brown tradition, possessed of a beautiful sound, clean facility, and good conception. Needless to say, he was immediately accepted on the local jazz stage and is currently a member of Bud Shank’s propulsive quintet (with which he will soon be heard on another Pacific Jazz recording). Pianist Frank Strazzeri is a native of Rochester who arrived in Los Angeles a year ago and proceeded to become one of the favorite jazz pianists of just about everyone who heard him. His local experience includes work with Art Pepper, Conte Candoli. Terry Gibbs, and Red Mitchell (with whom he currently plays in a trio of remarkable quality). Frank’s style is a clean flowing one that eschews frills but possesses great warmth and depth. His work is further balm for those who have feared that the piano might be coming under the control of jazzmen who had only a nodding acquaintance with the functional fingering aspects of the instrument.

Vibraharpist Bobby Hutcherson rounds out the sextet. A highly promising young musician who made his record debut with Les McCann’s trio, Bobby swings hard but reveals in addition a gentle melodic gift that he blends well with the blues that are the core of his invention. A quiet youth of mature demeanor, he seldom spoke or asked advice at these sessions but calmly found his place, mastered the difficulties of the charts and blew to the grinning satisfaction of all his companions.

As for the compositions: all are Curtis Amy originals, and were brought to the first rehearsals in various states of refinement, some with changes worked out, others to be experimented with by the sextet until everyone was satisfied. Amy’s tunes, though you’ll find they have an immediately compelling line and a thoroughly basic jazz feeling are nonetheless frequently challenging material. Side one opens with a crackling Gone Into It that sets the general tenor of the record and serves to introduce all the members of the Sextet in flying form. Annsome gives co-leader Butler a chance to step out in a brief but cogent solo while the Eb minor key and more than elementary construction keep the hornmen on their musical toes. Bobblin’, careening along in 6/8 time closes side one with Butler and Bond really pumping and the horns finding the improvisational going alternately a breeze and a tortuous combination of musical pitfalls — an exciting track. Side two opens with Groovin’ Blue, a simple blues with that timeless quality that characterized some of Carl Perkins’ best work (remember Grooveyard?). Then follows the only ballad of the set of tunes — Beautiful You, Like Milt Jackson, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, and a few other jazzmen, Curtis displays an ability at ballad composition that should be the envy of most Broadway composers. This one showcases Bobby Hutcherson’s vibes with the horns summing it all up. Very Frank is the set closer; the group recorded a full-length version but space and time do not permit inclusion in full, so take it for what it is — an excellent Curtis Amy tune that rounds things up and sends the album on its way. All in all, a challenging session, an excellent sextet, and most important, evidence of the new jazz in California that makes local listeners glad to live nearby. Listen and hear what I mean.