Billboard : 04/27/1957
Score of 74

Donaldson, one of the less-touted Charlie Parker followers, is one of the best, from the evidence here. In this well-balanced program, he gets superb backing from such as Horace Silver, Percy Heath, Art Blakey, the flashy Matthew Gee on trombone, and trumpeters Kenny Dorham and Blue Mitchell. It’s funky, swinging post-bop modern, and by demonstrating The Stroller you can sell a respectable quantity. It’s well worth a whirl.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

Ever since the dark day when the news of Charlie Parker‘s death reached out to shock the jazz world and rob it of its reigning modern solo genius, the race has been on to nominate an heir to the throne. Every aspiring alto saxophonist lucky enough to acquire a record company to sponsor him has been acclaimed as “the new Charlie Parker;” since it would be almost impossible to play modern jazz on the alto sax without showing some degree of Parker influence, this has left the court wide open for big kings, little kings, and pretenders to the crown.

In all this indecent haste to grab Charlie Parker’s royal robes virtually from the grave, one talent has been overlooked, largely because it was right there, growing alongside Bird during his own lifetime, and firmly established, at least among the musicians and fans who had heard him in the east, for several years before Charlie’s passing. This artist, now saluted in his first 12-inch LP, is the remarkable Lou Donaldson.

Lou is one of those musicians who may be said to reflect the impact of World War II on the entertainment world and its members. A number of new musicians have emerged as stars as a result of their training playing in orchestras while in the armed forces. Lou was one of them. It was in the Navy, while he was still in his teens, that he learned to play saxophone; it was while he was stationed at Great Lakes that he started to dig Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie while in Chicago on a pass; it was here that he acquired his orientation in the direction of bop and formulated the style you hear on these selections.

Born in Badin, North Carolina in 1926, son of a preacher and a music teacher, Lou studied music first with his mother, took up the clarinet at 15, the year he entered Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, N.C. He returned to this college after his Navy stint, and when Dizzy’s band played a dance in Greensboro one night, Lou sat in with band; Dizzy complimented him and advised him to come to New York.

Lou came here in 1950 and completed a course at the Darrow Institute of Music. He worked with combos at Minton’s, Birdland, Le Downbeat and the Paradise, jammed with such men as Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt. He met Horace Silver at a rehearsal studio one day and they struck up a friendship that produced two of the three sessions heard on this LP.

Lou is married and has two children; this means that he has often been obliged to make a living playing a brand of music much more “commercial” than the genuine and exciting solos heard between these covers.

The twelve numbers presented here were made at three sessions a few months apart. If I Love Again, the opening opus, is one of the quintet sides in which Blue Mitchell‘s trumpet serves to complement Lou in a two-horn opening and closing ensemble. Mitchell is a trumpet player who has worked with Earl Bostic and other rhythm-and-blues bands, thus, like Lou, keeping his talent somewhat obscured. Lou’s solo here sets the pace for his work throughout the album; his tone a little brassy and pinchy, in keeping with the mordant, swinging attack and the Bird-like conception and phrasing.

Down Home, an original 12-bar composition, shows that Lou, like many bop musicians (including Parker himself) has always kept faith with the blues, and with the real down-home blues, as this title makes self-evident. He even starts his last chorus here with the “my-mamma-done-told-me” phrase that has become almost a basic blues statement.

The Best Things in Life Are Free, a standard recently brought back to prominence by the movie of the same title, exemplifies Lou’s approach to old pop songs: after outlining the melody with only slight variations in the first chorus, his improvisational talent reaches its peak in the second. At least, the second chorus here is the passage that happens to impress me most, though the quality and variety of his work is so impressive overall that there will probably be many different “favorite” solos among the fans who listen to this remarkable session.

Lou’s Blues, another 12-bar excursion, is based on a riff theme, with a rhumba rhythm employed in the opening chorus. Lou and Horace Silver show a sympathetic entente cordiale while Gene Ramey and Art Taylor back them up admirably.

Cheek to Cheek, with its lengthy chorus and unusual construction, provides another happy jumping-off point, developed by Lou along similar lines to The Best Things in Life Are Free.

Sweet Juice is a fast blues whose phrases may seem reminiscent, since they have been much copied, though played with less bite and élan, by many of the west coast jazzmen. Elmo Hope, the pianist on this sextet date, shows the Bud Powell influence most effectively. Lou has a long and brilliant solo in which the continuity of his work places him in the first rank of modern alto men. Kenny Dorham, too, has a half-dozen fleet choruses and Matthew Gee, though considerably less publicized than Jimmy Cleveland, shows that he has all the latter’s flexibility and much of his improvisational ingenuity.

Roccus, another Silver original, has an Oriental flavor and Latin rhythm touches with Horace playing a second line to give the impression of a two-horn ensemble, though actually Lou has nothing but the rhythm section with him on this performance.

Caracas, a Donaldson composition, is notable for the inimitable Art Blakey cymbal sound that gives it such a distinctive tonal coloration right from the start. Lou, Elmo, Kenny and Matthew all have solos, with Blakey helping himself to the final bridge. Note particularly the warm quality of Gee’s work here, almost like a modernized Lawrence Brown.

Moe’s Bluff, composed by Elmo Hope, is a medium-tempo boppish tune again featuring Gee, Dorham, Donaldson and Hope.

In sum, these two sides show an exceptional and vastly underrated modern musician in the company of three equally distinguished sets of sidemen. It is to be hoped that Lou Donaldson will not be allowed to languish in the obscurity that has too long enveloped him, for here is one alto man who clearly does not have to rely on the Bird legend to make a substantial contribution of his own.