High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : January 1962

Crawford is the alto saxophonist and musical director of Ray Charles‘ sturdy little band, with which he appears here (minus Charles). Most of the selections serve primarily as showcases for his clean-lined, singing saxophone work. Crawford has the direct, soaring approach on alto associated with Benny Carter – a very felicitous style that, in his bands, produces glowingly melodious performances on ballads (Easy Listening, Lorelei’s Lament), and fits brightly into more rhythmic numbers. When he solos on the blues, Crawford phrases very much in the way Charles sings. This is strongly rooted, middle-ground jazz, with additional enlivening solos by David Newman on tenor saxophone and Phil Guilbeau on trumpet.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 11/19/1961

This is the small Ray Charles band led by Crawford and featuring trumpeter Phil Guilbeau in a beautiful ballad, What a Difference a Day Makes and the leader in another one of his moving, lyric ballad interpretations, Easy Living, as well as several first-rate originals. A very good album with some effusive notes by R.J.G.

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St. Paul Recorder
Albert Anderson : 02/16/1962

Recently, there has been an abundance of waxings of so-called soul music, but this one is the McCoy… That’s not saying, however, that all the tracks are soulful… On some, like Blue Stone and Playmates, the group utilizes quite a bit of force. But there is enough soulfulness on this set to more than whet the appetite of the most avid followers of that brand of jazz… In that vein, I like the quintet’s ballad treatment of What a Difference, Easy Living, and Lament best… As a whole, this LP provides both tunefulness and variety (the spice of music as well as life)… It is also music to dance to.

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Down Beat : 01/04/1962
Don DeMichael : 3.5 stars

There certainly is no lost motion in Crawford‘s altoing (he plays piano only on the intro of Love), or writing on this record. He wastes very few notes, always getting to the point quickly and sticking to it – which is refreshing at first but can be almost suffocating for a whole LP, especially if the main soloist makes as few points as does Crawford.

This is not to say this is a lusterless album or that Crawford is lacking as a soloist. But it is a restricted album on which Crawford tends to explore repeatedly the same emotional range.

Basically, this is jazz as dance music, which is good for both jazz and dancers. A couple of the jump tunes are not unlike the things Louis Jordan did so well in the 40s, though Crawford is on a higher jazz plan than Jordan usually was.

Crawford’s dark tone is matched by his bare-bones writing, but the effect of the whole is one of depression. The lightest moments come in short trumpet solos on Baby and Stone, played by either Hunt or Guilbeau (the notes do not say who).

Cooper and Newman solo briefly on Stone, and except for the aforementioned trumpet bits, plus another on Playmates, and Guilbeau’s feature track, Day, all the blowing space is taken by Crawford.

I found his ballad playing (Living and Lament) the most rewarding listening, especially his ability to imply more than what he actually plays. And sometimes he states things so simply and directly it’s scary, as his Lament solo attests.

Still, directness and simplicity can be overdone; Crawford comes close to doing that here.

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Liner Notes by Ralph J. Gleason

In the expanding universe of jazz album releases, it sometimes seems as if a good portion of today’s jazz was all done by the same people, recorded on some giant tape 20 miles long and then cut up into lengths for release on a single LP and issued one at a time.

The first thing that struck me when I heard Hank Crawford‘s initial Atlantic album was that here was a man who sounded completely and thoroughly himself. And on playing the test of this, his second album, I was struck by the same thing again. You won’t mistake Crawford for anyone else and while that alone is not all that it takes to make a distinctive, important jazz voice, I know of none of the important ones of whom it cannot be said. It is certainly a prerequisite, and possibly the most important one.

For the benefit of those who are coming late to the Crawford sound (stop here and pick up on his first Atlantic LP, More Soul) Crawford is one of the important members of the band that accompanies the great singer, Ray Charles. Usually heard on alto (as on this album), Crawford also doubles on flute, tenor, baritone and piano and arranges (as he has done on all of these tracks). The personnel here – as on the previous Crawford album – is actually the Ray Charles band without Ray. The piano, when it is heard, is played by Crawford.

In a world of jazz improvisation in which the premium has been placed on chord substitution and intricacies of invention, Hank Crawford burst like a return to real life. His style, if you will excuse the juxtaposition of piano and saxophone, reminds me in some ways of the Erroll Garner style in that there are really two Hank Crawfords, like there are two Erroll Garners. One of them stomps and shouts and wails on the jazz tunes and the other plays a slow ballad with an exquisite tenderness, lyricism and elegance unmatched on his instrument.

On this album, there are two examples of Crawford’s ballad style: the classic Easy Living and his own Lorelei’s Lament. All the words dealing with beauty have been so thinned out by overuse and irresponsible application that it seems totally inadequate to employ them here. Yet what I want to say about Hank Crawford’s ballad style can only be expressed by using these traditional, if now threadbare, words. He does play beautifully. He is positively eloquently lyrical when he improvises. There is such a sense (for me, at any rate, and I hope for you as well) of communication that even when there are no words, no lyric to the song (as in Lorelei’s Lament, you think there must be, he speaks so plainly.

Like Johnny Hodges and like [Artist15417,James Moody, Crawford sings out when he plays ballads, in a human-sounding way that makes his improvisations magnetic in their effect. You can’t take your ears away when he is playing, once you are caught in the net of his thoughts.

Again the truth of the adage “it ain’t what you do” is demonstrated by the way in which Crawford has developed the lyrical improvisations on the basic changes of the tune, phrasing it all in terms of the original melody. He has brought a new meaning to this type of approach, one which commands instant respect because of the intensity and eloquence with which he employs it.

It is also interesting (as well as a thoroughly delightful experience) to observe how this style of approach carries over from Crawford to Phil Guilbeau, the trumpet player who is featured on What a Difference A Day Made, surely one of the most moving ballad interpretations by a jazz trumpet player in recent years.

The instrumentation on this LP (two brass, three reeds, bass, drums) is exploited limitlessly by Crawford in a fashion that gives it a really unique big band sound on the up-tempo stomping tunes. On the ballads he uses space and time to astutely that sometimes when the soloist is accompanied only by bass or drums and then the band falls in behind him for a beautifully phrased figure, it sounds like 20 pieces. Because of its continuity of existence, this band has the same sort of group unity and cohesion that Basie and Ellington possess. As a result, they can drop tempos down to a walk and still keep swinging. The fact that they play for dancing a good deal of the time is a factor in this, too.

One other thing: The title of this album is The Soul Clinic, and no matter how thin that word “soul” has been made by senseless application to every soloist throwing in a blues phrase in a ballad, its original meaning is quite clearly expressed by the way in which Crawford, Guilbeau and the rest of the band play here (and elsewhere). To play with “soul” really means to play with great warmth and feeling – and in a directly communicative style of personal expression. Those words, even though I believe them to be accurate, are no substitute for the strong message of the music itself. Hank Crawford’s music really does speak for itself, eloquently, elegantly and with a brilliant, sometimes exotic and sometimes movingly sentimental, lyricism. It is good to hear and it bears hearing over and over again.