Billboard : 01/27/1958
Score of 74

A modern, blowing session that leans more to the melodic values than many of its kind. Trombonist Fuller, comparatively new to big time, grows more secure with each recorded outing, is flexible and reminiscent of J.J. Johnson of an earlier period. Baritonist T. Houston shows raw talent that time should polish; rhythm is excellent with pianist S. Clark and bassist P. Chambers contributing interesting solo moments. Sell as promising new talent.

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Cashbox : 02/01/1958

Fuller‘s tasty trombone work and Tate Houston‘s baritone sax offer the listener six punchy readings. The two soloists are nicely backed by Sonny Clark‘s piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and drummer Art Taylor. Of the six selections rendered, four are originals by Fuller. The two evergreens are Heart And Soul, and Again. One of the standout originals is one called Pickup, a new swinging opus that the boys deliver in a winning style.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

It is possible though not probably, and entirely within the realm of fantasy, that Blue Note Records may have to pack up some day and move off, lock, stock and Van Gelder, to Detroit. The proportion of jazz talent developing there – Thad and Elvin Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell and Paul Chambers are but a few random samples – seems entirely unfair to the rest of these United States. Now comes one of the youngest freshest and most important talents of all in the person of Curtis Fuller, whom some Blue Note aficionados have met on BLP 1567, his own LP, or BLP 1571, on which he sat in with Bud Powell.

Some of the vital statistics of this prodigious young man were pointed out in the notes on his first album – the fact that he is a native Detroiter, born there December 15, 1934; and the remarkable telescoping of his academic career (he was barely 16 when he graduated from high school). Recently, intrigued by the details of Curtis’ background, I met him for the first time and sat with him listening to this new album. Before we played the record he filled me in with a few additional items concerning his career.

It was J.J. Johnson who, more by osmosis than consciously, started Curtis on his sliding course to jazz and the Apple. “I knew Jay when I was a boy,” Curtis told me, thus bringing to mind with a jolt that he was a boy only seven or eight years ago. “He used to come to town with Illinois Jacquet‘s band, and I would run to get his autograph or talk to him. Everybody was concentrating on Jacquet and paying very little attention to Jay, and it seemed to me that he was the man to listen to.

“Jay sort of took me under his wing. I wasn’t even playing trombone then, although I always did like the instrument. The main reason I took it up, I believe, was that after I had accumulated enough credits to graduate from senior high school, having completed all my academics, I just decided to fill in time by taking a lot of music and art courses. I wanted to play the saxophone, really, but the trombone and the baritone horn were the only things that happened to be left, and they already had a trombone player, so I played baritone horn for just a little while, then the trombone player left and I took over.”

“I guess maybe I had a lot of natural talent, because it didn’t come too hard. This was in the academic year that began in September 1949 and I was just a little squirt. I didn’t really have it in my mind to do anything definite when I graduated. Music was just a fad. But while I was in the Army, with Cannonball Adderley as my sergeant, he he was the one who made me make up my mind to say with the trombone. The Adderleys were a wonderful inspiration. We had a very good marching band and a very fine jazz band. This was in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and we had a bunch of wonderful musicians – men who are with Ray Anthony now, guys who worked before or since with any number of name bands.”

After the Army stint, followed by a period of further studies at Detroit and Wayne Universities, Curtis started playing gigs around Detroit with a group that was originally under the leadership of Kenny Burrell. Then, when Kenny went off to act as temporary replacement for Herb Ellis in the Oscar Peterson Trio, the combo was taken over by a drummer named John Hindel Butts; Kenny’s brother Bill was on bass, Tommy Flanagan on piano and Pepper Adams on baritone.

When Curtis came to New York in April 1957 he was with Yusef Lateef, whose combo he had joined about a year earlier. “We were supposed to just cut some sessions here and then go straight back to Detroit, after one week. But during that week Miles Davis heard me, and he offered me a job playing with him at the Bohemia.

“Well, I didn’t like to let Yusef down suddenly like that, so I went back to Detroit to serve out my notice with him. Then when I came back to New York I did join Miles, but after a couple of nights the group suddenly broke up. So I went with Dizzy Gillespie‘s big band.”

“That was a strange job. I was playing the regular tenor trombone, but I had replaced Rod Leavitt, in the bass trombone chair, and I was reading bass trombone parts! It was ridiculous, of course, and it only lasted a couple of weeks – which was just as well, because I prefer working with small combos anyway; you get so much more of a chance to play.”

“Well, by this time Miles was getting ready to reorganize, and I thought I was set to start with him again, but it turned out that Sonny Rollins had quit Max Roach and was going to join Miles and Miles couldn’t carry three horns, so it fell through again. Since then I’ve just been coming and going between Detroit and New York, and making records.”

This brings us with irrefutable logic to Curtis’ newest record, Bone & Bari. The “Bari” representative is Tate Houston, another talented musician whom Curtis knew around Detroit; they worked together there in a big band led by the ex-Basie trombonist Jimmy Wilkins. Tate has played with Gillespie, Ernie Fields, James Moody and many other name bands, and for the past six months has been with the Maynard Ferguson orchestra. The pianist, Conrad Yeatis “Sonny” Clark, is of course best known for his years on tour with the Buddy DeFranco Quartet. I don’t think it would be unfair to assume that the reader is already familiar with the names and achievements of Messrs. Chambers and Taylor, so with your permission we shall pass along directly to an examination of the performances.

Algonquin, the opening track and first of four Fuller originals in this set, is a minor-mode blues. Commenting immediately on the rich bone-&-bari blend, I elicited from Curtis the response: “Yes, I’ve always preferred it myself; it’s deeper and fuller than trombone and tenor, of course, and I got sued to the sound during almost a year working with Pepper Adams.”

Nita’s Waltz, despite its unmistakable jazz timbre, has a certain intangible Strauss flavor. “This idea,” says Curtis, “came to me when I was in the subway with Alfred Lion, on the way back from visiting Bud Powell’s home when I was on the session with Bud. I started thinking of all the pretty things I used to know, and in particular a German folk tune that I heard when I was a kid. This idea evolved out of it.”

The rhythm section observes a legitimately swinging waltz feel throughout – “I didn’t want the beat turned around in any way,” says Curtis – enabling the improvising musicians to maintain the same genuinely rhythmic three-quarter-time mood that has informed an increasing number of jazz compositions during the past year. Clark, Fuller and Chambers are the soloists. “It’s simple. I love simplicity,” was Curtis’ observation as we listened to this delightfully relaxed track.

Bone & Bari, the title tune of the LP, has a curious origin. “I heard Eddie Fisher sing Count Your Blessings on TV and it gave me the idea for a theme moving downward diatonically the same way… Tate reminds me a little of Serge on this one, don’t you think?” Sonny has the first solo, a highly percussive single-note line well punctuated by Taylor. Chambers’ pizzicato excursion follows Curtis’ solo and matches it in agility of execution and richness of swinging ideas; then Art has a workout with the sticks before the theme comes back.

Heart and Soul is a Hoagy Carmichael standard. Curtis handles it moderato, playing a melody chorus before taking off on the changes. Sonny follows (“He knew the tune and liked it – we just jammed around with it in the studio for a while and then cut it”), after which the amazing Mr. Chambers takes over. The reprise of the theme, with Paul offering an attractive two-beat underline, leads to a slow fade on the tag.

Tate has the spotlight to himself as Curtis steps aside for Again. (“I used to listen to Tate playing this tune about four years ago in Detroit, and I always wanted him to record it.”) Tate interprets the nostalgic melody with slight and discreet embellishments. Sonny has a sympathetic 165-measure interlude. Says Curtis, “Tate has always been hidden in one band or another – he’s never had a chance to be out in the open. Now you can hear what he can really do.”

Pickup, which reunites the quintet for a fast finish, is a breakneck blues based on funky riff. Tate has the first solo ride, with Curtis joining him for some auxiliary riffing after the first five choruses. On Curtis’ own solo, which follows, notice how both his first and second choruses open with a rhythmically repeated single note, soon flowering out into a Fourth-of-July display of eighth-note fireworks and accelerating (figuratively, of course, not literally – the tempo is perfect) into a truly fantastic windup. (“Whew! said Curtis. “Thought I’d never get out of that one alive!”) I asked Curtis to see if he could even tap his foot in four at this tempo, and needless to say he soon had to cut it in half (the tapping, that is). Pickup is about as brilliant an example as you will hear around today of exceptional instrumental technique as a means to exciting instrumental ends. Sonny, too, is in there, cooking for I forget how many choruses – not too many, that’s for sure; and when he’s had his say, the riff returns as, exhausted, the men prepare to run for the coffee and call it a day. It was a most unusual day, at that.