Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 11/10/1957

On the offbeat side is Jackie McLean & Co., a quintet session with Ray Draper‘s tuba added on three of the five originals. I see it as a gimmick because the big horn doesn’t swing. The weakness is glaring, particularly in the spot where Mal Waldron follows a tuba solo. The pianist can move. And in another tune, the tuba attempts to ride with the trumpet of Bill Hardman. An uneven contest. It is Hardman and McLean‘s alto sax that keep this album very much alive. As in previous sessions by this group, there’s exceptional work by Art Taylor on drums and Doug Watkins, bass. A success, in spite of the tuba.

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Down Beat : 07/25/1957
Don Gold : 4 stars

This is a strange LP. It is dominated by a melancholy mood that permeates the compositions and performances. It is a kind of significant social commentary.

McLean blows with warm power and a solid sense of time. Although his statements are segmented at times, he can, and does here, manifest a concern for linear construction. Hardman can create fluttering strings of notes or sensibly constructed balladic forms. Draper, a 17-year-old New York tuba player shows conceptual promise in the face of the dull, often strident sound of the instrument. The rhythm sections consists of Waldron‘s interesting piano, Watkins‘ blues-rooted drive, and Taylor‘s intelligent rhythmic patterns.

Waldron wrote Flickers and Mirage. Watkins contributed Help. Draper wrote Minor Dream. McLean composed Beau Jack. All are in keeping with the prevading mood noted above.

Help is a writhing minor blues. Dream is based on a warm, moody theme. Mirage, a ballad, includes some of the best solo efforts here, including a lovely alto solo, a muted trumpet statement, and some meaningful piano. Watkins’ solo on Help, by the way, is a personification of all blues feeling.

I felt on listening to this that there was a implied dedication and purpose beneath the recorded sounds. It has a good deal of communicative significance. There is an impressive empathetic relationship within the group. Despite certain flaws of conception present, this is worth a diligent study.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

The members of Jackie McLean & Co., a young but active concern, may, at times, dress in a quasi-Madison Avenue style but their product may never be termed “gray flannel.”

At the last board meeting (Jackie’s Pal, LP 7068), Bill Hardman was appointed to the presiding body and in this present session, Ray Draper is taken in as a junior partner.

Ray is a young New Yorker who will reach the age of 17 on August 3, 1957. During the winter of 1956-57 he led his own group of youngsters at the Sunday afternoon bashes which a Brooklyn organization, Jazz Unlimited, was sponsoring at The Pad and Birdland. It was in this setting that he came to the attention of the older musicians around town, some of whom brought him to the attention of Bob Weinstock. Nat Hentoff, New York editor of Down Beat heard Draper and comment in his Counterpoint column, “he blows the hottest modern jazz tuba I’ve yet heard.”

Currently attending the High School of Performing Arts, Ray expects to continue his studies at the Manhattan School of Music after graduation in June of 1958.

Here, Ray is heard on Minor Dream, Help, and Flickers. In his first album as leader, scheduled for release in the near future, you will hear more of Ray and also learn more about him. Among other things, you will learn that Jackie McLean is one of Ray’s favorite musicians.

It seems that Jackie is a favorite of a lot of the young, up and coming musicians. From this statement, people who are not familiar with him might surmise that he is a jazz veteran and perhaps in his thirties. They would be right in the first part of their assumption but Jackie started very young and when he cut his first records with Miles Davis in 1951 (Dig, Prestige LP 7012) he was only 19. In the last year he has started to really mature in many ways. The compelling statements emanating from his swooping, biting, hotly flowing horn have earned the admiration of his elder as well as younger cohorts.

Bill Hardman has been Jackie’s front line associate in Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers during the latter part of 1956 and 1957. Although the same age as Jack, he is only come lately to big league jazz and is still a rookie, albeit a highly promising one. He comes to play and the very exuberance in his playing illustrates how much he enjoys his work. Bill’s is a punching, staccato style, brassy as the instrument on which it is played.

Head “idea man” of the firm, Mal Waldron, in addition to his piano solos, has contributed two originals to this meeting. Flickers, background music for a modern silent screen melodrama, was first heard in All Night Long (LP 7073). Here it is done at a slower tempo. Mirage is a melancholy ballad somewhat in the vein of Abstraction, a Waldron composition which appeared in Jackie’s 4, 5, and 6 (LP 7048).

Doug Watkins and Art Taylor weld their talents together to form a solid rhythmic base as they have many times in the past. Doug has also added to the raw material for the date with his minor blues, Help, in which Ray’s lugubrious tuba portrays the creeping evil and Jackie and Bill cry for assistance.

The tunes that round out the session are Draper’s Minor Dream with an introduction similar to Waldron’s Dee’s Dilema but different thereafter and McLeans Beau Jack, a blues of funky dimensions with beaucoup Jackie.

After consulting the stock reports and calling my broker, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s one thing for you to do – buy a share of Jackie McLean & Co.