Billboard : 07/01/1957
Score of 76

A valuable collection of Navarro performances culled from Blue Note files. Original takes previously released as singles on 10-inch LP 5004 and 12-inch LP 1503, plus alternate takes never before released, give a full-ranging glimpse of this late trumpet talent. Navarro is heard here with H. McGhee group, with A. Eager and W. Gray, and B. Powell unit with Sonny Rollins. Essential to a well-rounded collection.

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Cash Box : 03/30/1957

This is the first volume of a 2 volume series devoted to sessions by the late trumpeter Fats Navarro. Besides the original pressings, most of the numbers (i.e. Our Delight, Dameronia, and The Chase have alternate masters which include marked and subtle changes from the originals. Navarro had a fiery attack that had direction and imagination. Jazz collectors will want to get their hands on these rare jazz performances.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

The observation that these sides constitute Fats Navarro‘s first 12 inch LPs may seem inconsequential and irrelevant, along with the recollection that his sole 10 inch LP is Blue Note 5004, of which the present two volumes are an expansion. But these recollections become relevant to the degree thot they remind us of a lugubrious reality: the era of the LP was not with us when Fats died. He was represented only by a scattering of 78s when he made his last record date, and by the time his wasted body gave up its last breath in a New York hospital in the summer of 1950 he was almost unknown outside a knot of musicians and fans, a group that had kicked away the muddy ground overlaying the fairways of a maligned brand of music called bop.

In a context where causes and effects became misty and blurred, it was impossible to know which evil force had moved first in taking Fats from the scene, tuberculosis or narcotics addiction or racial discrimination or artistic frustration, or a witch’s brew of all these and more. All we knew was that the trumpet player from Key West, Fla., was dead at the age of 26.

What manner of man was Theodore Navarro? So many of today’s record collectors were still shy of their teens when he died that the childlike wistfulness of personality, the Don Newcombe profile, the Ciceronian eloquence of his horn were denied them forever. Able to meet Fats only through records, they can be thankful that Blue Note was able to preserve the evidence of his creativity at its height.

By the yardstick of the new era when overripeness is all, when pretentious explanation may tend to swamp honest improvisation, Fats was not a man of letters. He took up trumpet at 13, had a little tuition, fooled around with the tenor saxophone, and even played it professionally for a while with Walter Johnson‘s band in Miami, at an age when many of today’s jazzmen were finishing high school and preparing for college. After touring with the Snookum Russell band in 1941-2 he was first heard extensively in the east with Andy Kirk.

“Dizzy Gillepsie left my band in Washington, D.C.;” recalled Billy Eckstine in Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya. “He told me to go over to hear Andy Kirk, because there was a fellow with Kirk named Fats Navarro. ‘Take a listen to him, man’; said Dizzy, ‘he’s wonderful!’”

So | went out to the club, and the only thing Fats had to blow (because Howard McGhee was the featured trumpet player) was behind a chorus number. But he was wailing behind this number, and I said to myself, ‘This is good enough; this’ll fit!’

“So I got Fats to come by and talk it over, and about two weeks after that he took Dizzy’s chair, and take it from me, he came right in… Great as Diz is… Fats played the book and you would hardly know that Diz had left the band. ‘Fat Girl’ played Dizzy’s solos, not note for note, but his ideas on Dizzy’s parts and the feeling was the same and there was just as much swing.”

Fats stayed with Eckstine a year and a half. 1947 and ‘48 saw him with Illinois Jacquet and briefly with Lionel Hampton, Tommy Reynolds and Coleman Hawkins; it was during this period, and during his 1948-9 gigs with Tadd Dameron, that the present sides were recorded.

The nickname ‘Fat Girl’ did nothing to help Fats adjust to society. His high-pitched voice, queer but not necessarily effeminate, combined with his withdrawn manner to build a wall between him and the opportunities that should have embraced him during those crucial years of bop. | remember one night, during a jam session I was running at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street for which I had booked both Fats and Bud Powell, the tension between the two was aggravated as Bud chided Fats between sets. At the beginning of the next set Fats reached the bursting point. While the audience looked on in silent, terrified tension, he lifted his horn and tried to bring the full weight of it crashing down on Bud’s hands. He missed, thank God, but the strength in the blow was enough to buckle the horn against the piano; Fats had to borrow a trumpet to play the set. The incident, however, failed to affect the close friendship and mutual admiration between Bud and Fats.

There might have been no limit to Fats’ achievements had he been able to control his emotions, his health, his career. Benny Goodman, during his brief flirtation with bop, used him on one memorable side, but wouldn’t hire him steadily. Fats was going down musically as he went down physically.

“He had everything a trumpet player needs; said Joe Newman, “soul, a good lip, continuity and a good sound (one of those big butter sounds). A guy with as much as he had to work with couldn’t have failed if he had remained level-headed.” And Carmen McRae added: “He was sort of a cherub, big fat jaws and a big stomach, and he was so young, in his early twenties… l hear he was down to… one hundred and ten pounds, and he used to weigh… 175 at least, and he wasn’t tall, just fat, you know. He developed TB, which is how he died, and he wasted away to nothing.”

BLP 1531

The retention in Blue Note’s files of everything recorded at these sessions has made it possible to include alternate masters, never previously released, as well as the original masters on most tunes. Thus you will hear a flock of improvisations completely new to LP annals. You will notice in some instances, notably Our Delight, that Fats replays certain phrases almost note for note and retains something of the same general contour of the solo in both takes while the melodic line undergoes some modifications. This is even true of a performance based on as general a theme as the blues: on The Squirrel Fats carries ideas over in both his 12-bar choruses.

The alto of Ernie Henry, recently back in the jazz forefront, and the tenor of Charlie Rouse are heard extensively, as well as some samples of Tadd Dameron, who played what is usually called “arranger’s piano.” Tadd’s themes for this date offered a simple and never constrictive framework for Fats and the other soloists.

Wall and Bouncing With Bud offer the additional inducement of new improvisations by Bud, who is particularly astonishing on the former, and an early glimpse of the now popular Sonny Rollins, already big of tone and solid of style but not yet the influence he has become today on younger tenor men. Double Talk is the original master of an item to be discussed below in an analysis of the alternate (see 1532).

BLP 1532

Again the use of alternate masters provides a glimpse of new solos throughout both sides, together with the originals of the three tunes on the first side. Lady Bird, Jahbero and Symphonette brought together the contrasting tenors of Wardell Gray, another victim of the way of life that killed Fats (Wardell died in Las Vegas in May 1955) and Allen Eager. Allen takes the first solo and Wardell the second on Lady Bird; Wardell precedes Allen on Jahbero and Symphonette, his tone stronger and fuller and his style more mature. Once more Dameron’s arrangements serve as a functional catalyst.

Double Talk is the celebrated joint excursion by Fats and his ex-Kirk teammate, Howard McGhee. As far as the memories of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff and our combined ears could guide us, it would seem that Howard had the first two solo choruses, both here and in the original master (on 1531), followed by eights featuring Fats and Howard. Later, after the Ernie Henry solo, Fats precedes Howard in trading 16th, then eights, then fours. On The Skunk Howard has the solo before Milt Jackson‘s piano, Fats the one that follows it. Boperation’s first trumpet solo is Fats. McGhee comps on piano while Milt Jackson switches to vibes, after which Fats, Ernie and Howard take fours in that order to the closing theme.

Bouncing with Bud and Dance of the Infidels both offer hitherto unheard adlibbing by both Fats and Bud; the originally-issued takes can be heard on 1503. Both tunes are reminders of Bud’s melodic gift as a composer.

It is ironic that these sides, the products of four sessions that seemed in their day progressive, searching in concept, keyed to a glorious new future for jazz, today can be observed again through the prism of time that shows their true colors as part of an honorable past, now to be heard nostalgically, while in perspective their true worth as fully mature jazz can be seen crystal clear as never before. And as we marvel anew at the clarity and the directness and beauty of the musical mind that was Fats Navarro’s, we realize more than ever how formidably his impact could have been felt today, had he been spared to remain a living part of the world of jazz.