Cashbox : 11/07/1959
Jazz Pick of the Week

The sextet is comprise of several important new star jazzmen – Fuller (trombone), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Hank Mobley (tenor), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums). They offer performances of six tunes, tightly arranged by Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce. The men maintain a high level of excellence throughout especially in the development of the solo statements. Name value and performance rates the package extremely saleable.

—–

San Bernardino County Sun
Jim Angelo : 12/12/1959

Though composed of Eastern musicians, the Curtis Fuller Sextet attains a softer sound that might be expected on Sliding Easy. The presence of hard bopsters Lee Morgan (trumpet) and Hank Mobley (tenor) is tempered by the smooth round tone of Fuller’s trombone and the unifying rhythm of pianist Tommy Flanagan. Repertoire consists of 6 jazz standards, among them Bongo Bop, C.T.A., and Down Home.

—–

San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 11/29/1959

Certainly the best record the young trombonist has made and the first I have heard which justifies his fine reputation. Much credit, too, is due Lee Morgan‘s trumpet, Hank Mobley‘s tenor, Tommy Flanagan‘s piano and Paul Chambers‘ bass. Even more credit to two arrangements by Gigi Gryce and four by Benny Golson. One of the better records of the year.

—–

Springfield Republican
Gerald M. Healy : 12/20/1959

The Curtis Fuller Sextet is a “real cool” bunch of musicians.

Fuller, who has styled himself after J.J. Johnson, has been the subject of praise since he made his debut in 1957 by fellow musicians. His trombone work is excellent. If you’d like to hear him personally, try Sliding Easy. Fuller is getting better with each succeeding performance. Within a few years you’ll hear plenty about him in music circles.

Fuller, Morgan, Jones and arranger Benny Golson, who arranged four of the selections on this LP – Bit of Heaven, I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone, Bongo Pop, and When Lights Are Low – are all 1959 first-place winners in the Down Beat new star category.

Gigi Gryce was arranger for the other two tunes, Down Home, and C.T.A.

—–

Down Beat : 01/07/1960
Don DeMichael : 3 stars

Excellent men, good arrangements plus better-than-average compositions should add up to more than a run-of-the-mill LP; even though this album has all these qualities the sum is less than the parts. There is a fourth quality that is missing; fire. Without this ingredient to weld the parts together this album falls short of achieving its potential.

Curtis Fuller is in possession of one of the most facile techniques in the field of jazz trombone, but in this collection he fails to project much in the way of emotional warmth. Although his playing is on a high level throughout, it doesn’t reach those peaks of inspiration we’ve come to expect in the best performances. His best playing is on Down Home and C.T.A., but even on these he seems to keep his emotions in check.

On the other hand. Lee Morgan plays with great fire, humor, and imagination on most tracks. His spirited solos are the biggest kicks on the disc. Mobley‘s work is rather undistinguished except on C.T.A., the best track of the album.

Gigi Gryce and Benny Golson did the well-thought-out arrangements. Both voiced the ensembles well, getting a big sound from the three horns. They did not stop here, however, but wrote interesting background figures and driving out-choruses. This is the difference between real arrangements and the unison lead lines which pass as such.

This could have been a top-drawer album, but with its low B.T.U. rating it falls to a lower category.

—–

Liner Notes by Robert Levin

To become a better musician with each date is the mark of a truly serious, dissatisfied and obviously maturing musician. Such a one is Curtis Fuller. In 1957 when Fuller emerged on the scene with the mass emigration of young musicians from Detroit to New York, the reactions to his work were several. He was simultaneously hailed as the next great trombonist and censured as a slavish imitator of J.J. Johnson. If, at that point in his career, the latter evaluation was most prevalent, it was informed by many uncircumventable aspects of his playing which indicated that he had been deeply influence by Johnson. But, at the same time, what would seem to have animated the praise he received from such musicians as Bud Powell and Miles Davis was their recognition of a potential originality in his playing that only continued work would bring to the fore. And if at twenty-three Curtis Fuller was not yet “the next great trombonist,” has not yet found his own way, had still to look to Johnson for his conception and direction, it was no valid cause for reproach.

The young artist in any form needs the experience which comes with time to both withdraw from the influences which necessarily pervade his early work and to organize and develop his own statement. There are still obvious vestiges of Johnson’s style in that of Fuller’s but there is no reason that there should not be. One learns from another and by definition something is retained. And certainly what one hears on this record, while it is not the Curtis Fuller we will hear in 1961, is not the Fuller of 1957 either. He is growing and his own voice, as was inevitable, is taking shape.

Of late, and particularly on this recording, Fuller is exhibiting an assuredness, conviction and energy that is correlated with both the awakening of his abilities and his awareness of them. As implied above, he has not played so well on records before and the supporting musicians, with whom he has had extensive on-the-job experience, (Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley and the brilliant rhythm section of Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers and Elvin Jones) seems to have been extended by his spirit.

It will be apparent on the first hearing that this recording was put together with a great deal of thought and care. it was not simply another “blowing session.” In addition to the above average quality of most of the solos and the general level of excellence that is maintained, there is the work of two exceptional arrangers, Gigi Gryce and Benny Golson.

Gryce arranged Down Home, a Curtis Fuller piece, which seems to me to be among the more valid and effective of the currently in fashion Negro spiritual and revival song recreations since Horace Silver‘s The Preacher. It is removed from many similar efforts by an obvious absence of contrivance and self-consciousness which has stilted so many recent attempts to examine and reassert a central facet of the modern jazz foundation. Gryce, who is himself an extremely talented composer, expressed particular respect for Fuller’s writing capacities.

“Curtis has a talent that he should develop. He should write more. He has very strong possibilities. This piece was very good to work with. It has a very interesting, very warm line and it created quite a mood in the studio. Its construction is sixteen and sixteen and the changes fall very naturally, not as if they were composed. It gets the feeling of the old-fashioned Church sound – it has a real vocal feeling.” The contrapuntal voicing behind Fuller’s solo is meant to give the impression of the preacher-congregation exchange and it comes off quite well – unquestionably a high point in a very fine set. The unidentified tambourine player will have to remain so, but it might be added that the arranger’s participation in this instance, did not end with the orchestration.

Gryce also arranged C.T.A., a Jimmy Heath tune popular with many modern jazz musicians. The intention here, as Gryce puts it, was to achieve “a big band sound, or at least a sound larger than the band itself – about seven or eight pieces.” That he accomplished this will be apparent and the full ensemble passages are complemented by good solos.

The orchestrations of the remaining four numbers may be credited to Benny Golson about whose writing talents such compositions as Stablemates, I Remember Clifford, will testify. As an arranger Golson is particularly cognizant of the capacities and limitations of the musicians for whom he is scoring, and his recognition of the scope and nature of their talents is the guiding force in his writing for them. Such an understanding would seem, of course, to be an obvious prerequisite for the arranger, but unfortunately this is not always the case. However, Golson is less concerned with simply displaying his vocabulary as an orchestrator than he is with directing his skills toward the specific characteristics of the group and individual soloists. In this instance Golson has had the benefit of extensive musical experience with all the musicians involved and his comprehension of their various styles is consistently evident throughout his arrangements.

Golson is also able to articulate about his work with unusual lucidness and as for Bit of Heaven, which Fuller composed, Golson reaffirms Gigi Gryce’s appreciation of the young trombonist’s writing abilities. “His writing is becoming consistently broader. In this composition I feel that he has attained his greatest peak and I enjoyed orchestrating it. It shows his advancement melodically in that it is not just a line or a vehicle… it flows. In this particular composition the harmonic structure was such that it suggested a variation or what is commonly known in jazz as an ‘out-chorus.’ I wrote the ‘out-chorus’ trying to keep the feeling that he captured with the original melody. In this arrangement, as throughout all the arrangements I did, I employed piano-type ‘comp’ passages in any two horns that were playing behind the solo horn.”

In Charlie Parker‘s Bongo Bop Golson wanted to show Curtis’ flexibility. “Therefore I let him play the first chorus melody (which incidentally is rather difficult for the trombone) by himself. In the ‘out-chorus’ – before the final theme chorus – I tried to get two different sounds. The first being that of a brass section, the second that of a reed section. In the ‘brass section’ the trumpet and trombone played open, in the ‘reed section’ they played deep into ‘stone-lined hats.’ The chords that the ‘reed section’ form are completely out of the key.”

In the very pretty, uncluttered ballad, I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone, Golson attempted to be “very sympathetic with Curtis’ style. I tried to use harmonies, tone-clusters and melodic passing tones that would not interfere with his playing, but which would be interesting. I think he plays a beautiful ballad.”

Golson handled When Lights Are Low, the song which Miles Davis brought to prominence in the jazz context, with equal sensitivity. “I began this one with a rather long waltz introduction purposely, to make the rhythm (with a two-beat feeling at the beginning of the melody) more acute. On the theme I employed very close harmony, with the piano doubling each horn part for added togetherness and fullness. I used backgrounds spasmodically so as not to interfere with the soloist. For a variation or ‘out-chorus,’ I changed the harmonic structure slightly and voice the horns very close again.”

Golson who has known Curtis Fuller since the latter’s first days in New York also wished to express the following appreciation of him as an instrumentalist.

“I think Curtis is one of the most, if not the most, underrated trombonist of this era. Most horn players always seem to be striving for a big, round sound and this seems to come very naturally to Curtis. Consequently it is always very easy to use him with just about any instrumentation. His melodic conception is uncanny. I’m sure that on records one would become very much aware of his talent as a trombonist and I predict that Curtis Fuller will rise to great heights as a jazzman.”