Billboard : 02/22/1964
Special Merit Pick

The point of departure is actually the point of entry for Gary McFarland, closely associated with the many jazz compositions bearing his name. This is a collection of all new McFarland works and the composer takes part in performing them with a newly formed sextet featuring Willie Dennis, Richie Kamuca, Jimmy Raney, Steve Swallow, Mel Lewis. Jazz fans will find much to listen for and enjoy in this LP.

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Cashbox : 02/29/1964

In an era when vibists are becoming quite rare indeed, Gary McFarland comes up with this top-drawer set which spotlights his own vibistic talents and bows, for the first time on wax, his Sextet. The McFarland approach is an easy-going midstream style with each member of the group given ample opportunity to display his individual abilities. Highlights of the disk include Sandpiper, Hello To The Season, and I Love To Say Her Name. Jazzophiles should find plenty to dig here.

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Asbury Park Press
Don Lass : 04/11/1964

Young McFarland has developed a substantial reputation arranging for large orchestras, his own and those of established leaders. Here he parts with the big band format and devotes his considerable skills to a group of his own choosing, a sextet of stellar jazzmen. The arrangements are neither as complex nor as provocative as many of his previous works, but there is the individual stamp of McFarland on all seven tracks, of which he composed six.

There is an eerie, almost weird sound to many of these pieces that effectively tells the story implied in the title. Pecos Pete, for example, is a lament for a lonely cowboy and the ensemble sounds attain that feeling. Hello to the Season, on the other hand, reflects the joy and humor one would expect of the title. This is the mark of McFarland and it sets him apart from other arrangers.

All the tracks are interesting for they explore a wide variety of melodic and rhythmic patterns, thus avoiding the “jam session” free-for-all atmosphere that is too standard in jazz recordings. McFarland also shows here a great deal of originality on vibraphone though he is limited in technique.

Willie Dennis, trombone, is the outstanding solo voice and drummer Mel Lewis handles the intricate rhythmic patterns with ease. Richie Kamuca, tenor sax, Steve Swallow, bass, and Jimmy Raney, guitar, complete the cast.

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Charlotte News
Jerry Reece : 03/28/1964

Gary McFarland has made his reputation in jazz primarily as an arranger but with the release of Point Of Departure he begins to emerge as a strong combo leader and vibraharpist.

Fronting a sextet including Willie Dennis on trombone, Richie Kamuca on tenor sax, Jimmy Raney on guitar, and Steve Swallow on drums, Gary leads his charges through six McFarland originals and the theme from “David and Lisa.”

The group sounds fine on all sides but on Shlock-House Blues they show what heights they are capable of scaling and how swinging and melodic McFarland’s writing can be.

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Charlotte Observer
Paul Jones : 03/15/1964

Known chiefly as a composer-arranger for other bands and jazz groups, Gary McFarland now displays his talents as a vibraharpist and writer within the framework of his own group, a sextet.

Point Of Departure is a highly listenable, imaginative album that features McFarland on vibes, Willie Dennis on trombone, Richie Kamuca on tenor sax, Jimmy Raney on guitar, Steve Swallow on bass and Mel Lewis on drums.

The tunes are: Pecos Pete, Love Theme From David and Lisa, Sandpiper, Amour Tormentoso, Schlock-House Blues, I Love To Say Her Name and Hello To The Season.

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HiFi / Stereo Review
Nat Hentoff : June, 1962
An Authoritative Newcomer

Having already built a sizable reputation as a consistently inventive arranger and vibraphone player for other leaders, Gary McFarland has now formed his own unit. On the evidence of this new Impulse album. Point of Departure (the group’s recorded debut), McFarland must now also be considered a superior combo organizer. He has chosen his personnel carefully. With the exception of Richie Kamuca, an undistinctive tenor saxophonist, it is difficult to imagine a group of sidemen more creatively in tune with McFarland’s musical goals.

Jimmy Raney, though relatively inactive as a jazzman in recent years, is still one of the most original, lyrical, and flexible of modern jazz guitarists. Steve Swallow has quickly gained recognition as a bassist of broad scope, exceptional technique, and probing ideas. Trombonist Willie Dennis is a musician of singular imaginativeness and satirical capacity. Mel Lewis, long recognized as a superb big-band drummer, proves himself equally authoritative in a small unit, and leader McFarland plays vibes with the same lucidity, grace, and thoughtfulness that are evident in his compositions.

Rarely in recent years has so new a unit so quickly achieved an identity as unmistakable as that of McFarland’s sextet. In the subtly interwoven structures of the scores, ensemble patterns and textures are as important as solos. The result is a series of absorbingly developed pieces in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts a phenomenon not too common among jazz combos. There is also a considerably greater play of dynamics in ensembles and solos than is evident in most modern jazz units.

McFarland’s originals are occasionally based on themes with the flavor of the southwest (Pecos Pete, Amour Tormentoso). He is also expert in creating resilient love songs (I Love to Say Her Name), mobile sketches (Sandpiper), and humorous swingers (Schlock-House Blues). It is to be hoped that the economics of the music business will permit McFarland to continue functioning as a leader. An extended opportunity to write specifically for his own unit will not only accelerate his growth as a jazz composer, but will provide us with more durable and more diversified jazz experiences than can be expected from the majority of conventional jazz combos.

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High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : April, 1964

This sextet, we are told, is a permanent group formed by McFarland. It includes Willie Dennis, trombone; Richie Kamuca, tenor saxophone and oboe; Jimmy Raney, guitar; Steve Swallow, bass; and Mel Lewis, drums, with McFarland on vibraphone. McFarland, of course, is primarily a composer and arranger; the remaining five add up to an unusually provocative assemblage of jazz talent. Yet this disc is rather disappointing. McFarland’s writing is basically interesting, but the performances tend to be routine. Raney, one of the finest of contemporary guitarists, is relegated to a secondary role, while Kamuca, although given considerable solo space, does little with it. Only Dennis is a consistent and imposing performer. He plays with tremendous authority and is a dominant figure not only in his solos but in giving depth and body to the ensembles. There are some minor pleasures in the set – a churning, rolling piece called Schlock-House Blues, a potentially interesting lament, Amour Tormentoso, and a vibraphone and bass passage on Sandpiper. But only one number, Hello to the Season, fulfills the promise one might expect from this group. It is an appealing McFarland composition on which Raney is given an opportunity to be heard, Kamuca produces his best solo on the disc, and Dennis is unfailingly interesting.

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Raleigh News and Observer
R.L. : 02/23/1964

One of the most pleasant of the Impulse! albums is Point of Departure, featuring vibist Gary McFarland’s sextet (Jimmy Raney, guitar; Mel Lewis, drums; Steve Swallow, bass; Willie Dennis, trombone; and Richie Kamuca, tenor sax and oboe). McFarland not only is an excellent vibes man, but the collective sound of his group is exceptional. It has all the musicianship of the Modern Jazz Quartet, but without that foursome’s sometimes exasperating introspection. The seven tunes range from blues to ballads, with occasional blends of the two.

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Down Beat : 03/12/1964
John S. Wilson : 3.5 stars

After making a strong impression in his arrangements for a variety of studio groups, McFarland has formed his own sextet, which makes its debut on this disc.

Maybe he should have waited a little before committing his group to anything as permanent as an introductory recording. Not that, by most standards, this is a poor collection. It is, however, one of the less distinctive sets that McFarland has been associated with.

Aside from Lisa, it is made up of McFarland originals, which, in themselves, maintain a high level of interest. Amour, Schlock, and Season are particularly worthwhile ideas. But despite having provocative bases, the only one of the seven pieces that holds together all the way through is Season, on which, significantly, Raney has one of his few real solo chances, and Kamuca rises above the rather wan level that he displays on other pieces.

The only really distinctive voice that emerges is Dennis, who towers over his colleagues in everything he does, soloing with great imagination and giving ensemble passages a fine sense of body. McFarland is a serviceable vibraharpist who seems to know his own limitations and does not try to reach past them. His best contribution instrumentally is in a moving vibes-and- bass passage with Swallow on Sandpiper.

A more judicious use of Raney might help the group considerably and might contribute toward the development of a distinctive group approach that is one thing the sextet seems to need at the moment.

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Liner Notes by Martin Williams

This LP announces the formation of a Gary McFarland Sextet – a most welcome event for the leader’s career, not to mention for the pleasure of his listeners. Until now this highly talented young composer-arranger seemed destined to follow the path of his immediate predecessors and write in something of a creative vacuum – turning out scores for this big band one day, that name singer the next day, and a middle-sized recording group of such and such an instrumentation the following week. No matter how stimulating and interesting a jazz composer may find such a constant variety of tasks, and no matter how well he may execute his assignments, he will seldom encounter the ultimate challenge of close and constant collaboration between composer and group, between his own talents as arranger and the talents of given players, individually and collectively, that have so often been the basis of the highest achievements in jazz.

For if you think about it, the great jazz composer-arrangers have worked collaboratively with their groups. The supreme example of course is Duke Ellington, to whom all others pay homage.

Nor are high achievements resulting from such collaborations limited to jazz. We are apt to think of Greek or Elizabethan plays as moving experiences which call to us timelessly across the centuries. Yet the facts are that these plays were first conceived for the specific talents of established groups of actors. (And, we should add, they make individual interpretations of traditional forms and ideas – as jazz musicians do.) Similarly, European composers have often done their best work for specific singers and instrumentalists. And many a surviving classic ballet was originally written for an established corps of dancers.

During the past ten years we have seen few comparable examples in jazz. The written and improvised collaboration of John Lewis as composer and pianist with the Modern Jazz Quartet is one, to be sure. But otherwise? The Jimmy Giuffre trio; the George Russell group. Of course, such and such an arranger may know such and such a big band he often writes for, when he will “bring something in” for it, but that is not quite the same thing.

Gary McFarland has chosen to work with six men, a choice which is not a compromise on his part but a decisions based on his ideas the way he wants to make music. The decisions is also based on the individual players – Gary wasn’t just filling a chair already set up for trombone, tenor sax, guitar or whatever, when he chose these men.

The members of the sextet were picked for individual and collective virtues – hand picked by Gary McFarland as a matter of fact, “to subordinate a desire to take choruses all around on every piece, and to consider the ensemble as well.” But the players don’t just play, just read off the notes on their parts, and improvise when the piece of paper placed before them says to improvise. “We are a group of six minds,” says Gary. “All the other players make suggestions about the charts, and I will change things to suit one man or the group as a whole.

“I was honored to be able to get Jimmy Raney, says McFarland, categorically. “He is such a good soloist. I have never heard him play a bad chorus. His lines are sometimes involved, but they have the best elements, the essentials, of music with such clarity that they never sound complicated or cluttered.” On the other hand, I would add, don’t miss his accompanying either.

McFarland knew of Richie Kamuca (late of the West Coast, but now of New York) of course, as do most followers of jazz, “but when I heard he played six or seven different instruments – well my face just lit up.” You will hear Kamuca’s oboe, besides his tenor saxophone, on this LP. His always lyrical tenor is appropriate to several of McFarland’s compositional moods.

“I love Willie Dennis’ tone, an old-fashioned, bittersweet sound, if you will,” Gary says, adding, “Unlike so many trombonists nowadays, he isn’t trying to sound like J.J. Johnson. As an ensemble musician, Dennis is conscientious with his part, always trying to get the most out of everything he plays. And he is a good soloist.”

About bassist Steve Swallow, McFarland says, “For a young guy he has so much of the history of jazz – I should say of the history of music – at his command. He feels his way into any kind of music. He is aware of the spirit of any kind of group or any style. Yet he doesn’t really change his own.”

My own feeling about Mel Lewis is that he is one of the most deceptive drummers I have ever heard. I have often had to stop and make myself aware of just how much drums he is playing, for he is so unobtrusive a craftsman. Gary would apparently agree: “He has always been my favorite big band drummer (both he and Gary worked with the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band), but I did not know how well he would play in a small group. Then I heard him playing with Zoot Sims, and I knew I wanted him. I never write much of a part of him except for a few indications. We just exchange looks now and then as the group runs over a piece. With instruments like vibes and guitar, you know, a drummer has to be very discreet. I also like the variety in his cymbal work. Frankly, I hate to hear a drummer us the same ride cymbal continuously. Mel picks a different cymbal for each piece – and for the different parts of the same piece.”

I think one might use the energetic Pecos Pete to illustrate the singular variety-plus-order one finds in McFarland’s music. The opening immediately suggests several things: the blues, the Southwest and Cowboy balladry. And the piece is a vehicle for several solo improvisors. Yet we hear a continuous performance of a score with a character of its own.

David and Lisa is Gary’s own stately and functional reading of the theme from Frank Perry’s film, which Gary has seen about five times now. Perhaps we can henceforth count this melody as among several others which jazzmen have rescued from soundtracks and perpetuated – I am thinking of pieces like Laura, Stella by Starlight, Love Letters, Green Dolphin Street, etc.

If you’ve ever watched one of the birds in deliberate yet fluttering and pecking movements, the logic of the title, Sandpiper, will be clear to you. The opening depends on a subtle cooperation between high pitches from Mel and Gary. The piece is another blues, and Gary has managed to get a full and varied scoring from his six pieces, especially in his opening, but without any trickery. I was also struck by the choruses of exciting, simultaneous improvising included here: Gary; then Gary and Steve; then Gary, Steve and Mel; then Steve and Mel, in fascinating succession.

Amour Tormentoso is a strong title for a self-consoling lament, again with Southwestern connotations. Of this own wordless vocal portion, Gary says, “When I was working on this, I would always hum this part, thinking of a guy alone in a room. I found I just couldn’t hear it any other way.”

Schlock-House Blues, with its churning opening, gets its title from Gary’s understanding of a Yiddish word which is usually used to mean cheap, shoddy furniture. Here it refers to the rare bargains a lady of his acquaintance uncovers in inexpensive shops. The performance makes a marvelously skillful use, by both composer and players, of the string-of-solos approach. Notice how the rhythm shifts as Kamuca begins. Then notice that Dennis’ choruses begin with the broken rhythms of stop-time. (And notice Raney’s accompaniment to him!) Notice that Gary’s choruses are preceded by a re-phrasing of the theme, to re-establish the basis of things. notice the contrastingly spare rhythm under Steve Swallow’s solo. And notice that the rhythm section doubles under Jimmy Raney. All this, with no discontinuity, with nothing but a feeling of straight-ahead momentum from beginning to end.

I Love To Say Her Name is a mobile love-confession with some backgrounds succinctly delivered by Dennis; with more exciting simultaneous improvising, this time by Raney and McFarland; and with another effective written paraphrase of the theme.

McFarland says that as a writing for melodies he always finds himself thinking first in terms of song rather than instruments, not only of traditional song forms but of themes with vocal qualities. Yet Hello To The Season is one of several examples of how his works are instrumentally expandable, and how they can contain a variety of treatments withing a single lyric outline.

Now, enough of Gary’s comments and my reactions. To the music, and your own.