Billboard : 01/12/1957
Score of 68

Trombonist Gee plays in the romantic, robust manner of Bennie Green, and occasionally goes a little more modern. The jazz on this disk is pleasant, but not unusual. Sidemen include, on various sides, Kenny Dorham, Frank Foster, Cecil Payne, Art Taylor and Ernie Henry. Not a major entry.

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Hartford Courant
Jac Miller : 02/17/1957

Jazzy by Gee! is the name of a new Riverside LP that puzzles us somewhat. It’s Matthew Gee on trombone and Ernie Henry, alto sax – in combination with Joe Knight, Wilbur Ware and Art Taylor, and on the whole of Side 1 only Sweet Georgia Brown comes close to swinging – or to that right combination of instrument sounds and tones. Could be studio acoustics of placement of personnel, but something is missing. That something, incidentally, is not Ware’s bass – his solo on Lover Man is strong and clear and good. Side 2 presents three of Gee’s own compositions and includes Kenny Dorham on trumpet.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 01/13/1957

Gee is an excellent trombone player who gets full opportunity to blow here, almost too full an opportunity. He’s accompanied by several New York swingers including Kenny Dorham and Ernie Henry. Though it gets a bit frantic in spots, it’s a good LP.

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San Antonio Light
Renwicke Cary : 02/03/1957

The Matthew Gee All-Stars’ new Riverside album – Jazz by Gee! – is one for the discriminating modern jazz fan. Gee early heard the siren call of the bop idiom and is now recognized, a bit tardily, as one of the top ranking trombone men. On this new disc, he performs with a swinging style that never loses its beat, on both standard and original tunes. And, interesting to note, Gee is a Texas-born musician from Houston. Those on the recording date with him are Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Cecil Payne (baritone sax), Art Taylor (drums) and others.

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Saturday Review
Wilder Hobson : 01/26/1957

Admirers of slide trombonists who really slide (instead of concentrating on the imitation of key instruments) will wish to hear the playing of Matthew Gee in Jazz by Gee!. This small band album has a good deal of recent Brooklyn talent aboard and the music is generally forthright and rather tough, a mixed bag. Gee, an admirer of the subtly slippery J.J. Johnson and Bennie Green, strikes me as one of the best modern trombonists I have heard. No tension to speak of.

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Down Beat : 01/09/1957
Nat Hentoff : 3.5 stars

Trombonist Gee, who has worked with Erskine Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Ammons–Stitt, Basie, and Jacquet now has his first LP as leader. The first side (five tracks) includes altoist Ernie Henry; pianist Joe Knight; the excellent bassist from Chicago, Wilbur Ware and Art Taylor.

The quintet numbers are somewhat hampered by rather routine arrangements. The rhythm section, however, is steamy, and Ware has a remarkable solo in Lover Man. Henry is a slashing, Bird-driven altoist who has been away from the scene for a time. His passion and wailing beat are welcome. Gee certainly has drive, a virile tone, and swings fully, but his conception is often not too fresh. He is, however, kicks to hear because of his emotional force.

Second side (last three tracks) is played by a septet formed of Gee, Kenny Dorham, Frank Foster, Cecil Payne, Joe Knight, John Simmons, and Art Taylor. Again, the rhythm section digs a firm groove. In the front line, Dorham is the most impressive soloist. Foster and Payne contribute muscular solos, but like Gee, are most valuable for their emotional impact than for the depth of their imagination. The heads, all be Gee, are quite ordinary. Not a record for anyone on a stringent budget, but otherwise a warm if not particularly distinctive experience. Title is Jazz By Gee! (Riverside must have borrowed a Bethlehem Rumpelstiltskin.

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Liner Notes by Orrin Keepnews

This is, above all, a down-to-earth, hard-biting, swinging album.

The word “swinging” is very possibly the single most overworked descriptive term in jazz today. But there are times when it is not only proper but inevitable – when it’s the only right right word. Much current jazz is heavily intellectualized; some of this is undoubtedly valuable, but some seems merely tenuous, with no feeling of having firm, solid roots. So it’s both fitting and necessary that the other aspects of modern jazz – such as the kind Matthew Gee serves up here – have a sort of key code-word, instantly understandable as meaning, in effect: “this music hasn’t lost the beat.” At the moment, “swinging” is that key word.

Gee and his several associates on this LP definitely have the beat, the vital pulse. They have more than that, too. Very much in evidence are the fresh jazz ideas of several fine soloists with things to say and the ability to express them clearly and well. And it’s always good to sense the easy rapport between men who know and appreciate each other’s work, who can move together along the same musical lines without having to do any straining at all.

Those who must put their jazz into categories can tab this LP as being of the post-bop school, an extension of that new ‘tradition’ of small band jazz that began in Harlem with the 1940s and is still very much with us. Actually, Gee (like most jazzmen) has more than one music to offer. Here, specifically, there are two differing approaches. In the seven piece group there is the big, open sound of deliberately loose-linked originals: the ensemble merely stating the fresh them, after which the four horns take off in turn, with as much ‘blowing’ room as is needed. The Quintet, concentrating largely on standards, more succinctly states, puts emphasis on ensemble interplay between Gee and the alto sax of Ernie Henry and on more tightly-knit arrangements (including two by the talented Philadelphia arranger, Bill Massey, who scored Out of Nowhere and wrote Jordan).

Matthew Gee, who is belatedly getting a first opportunity to record with the spotlight focused on him, is among the far-too-many skilled performers who have earned the solid and long-standing respect of their colleagues without ever breaking through to the public recognition they clearly deserve. Gee, who has been described by Leonard Feather as one of the “best and most underrated of bop-influenced trombonists,” was born in Houston, TX, in the mid-20s. His father was a bass player; his brother Herman is also a trombonist. Matthew began on trumpet, then moved to baritone horn, and by the age of eleven had settled on trombone. He was first influenced – not only in style, but in his actual decision to turn to that instrument – by hearing Trummy Young, then playing far-ahead trombone with the Jimmie Lunceford band. After a stay at Alabama State College (which had gained its musical reputation from the band Erskine Hawkins had organized there), Gee came on to New York, where his first big band job turned out to be with Hawkins. After Army service, he worked with Dizzy Gillespie in 1945, with the Gene Ammons–Sonny Stitt group, Count Basie and Illinois Jacquet, and has freelanced in the New York area for the past couple of years.

Matthew’s current favorites are J.J. Johnson and Bennie Green, and some of his regard for them can be heard in his work. But there is even more in his driving, plunging style that is strictly Gee; and is it high time that a lot more people were able to appreciate just how much jazz that is. (Also strictly his own, it should be noted, are the in-tempo guttural throat sounds with which – in some totally unexplainable way – Gee occasionally seems to answer himself while playing!)

The supporting cast here rates its “all star” billing. On the Septet numbers, Frank Foster, a current mainstay of the Basie sax section, is in particularly rich form. Kenny Dorham, one of the original Jazz Messengers and now leading his own Jazz Prophets, is one of the major trumpet voices on the present scene. Cecil Payne, who can also be heard prominently on Riverside RLP 12-214 (with Randy Weston), demonstrates again his amazing agility on baritone sax. The Quintet features Ernie Henry, one of those rare alto players with a definite sound and ideas of his own in addition to the inevitable debt to Charlie Parker. (Both the playing and writing of Henry – whom we at Riverside consider destined for near-future stardom – are featured on RLP 12-222).

The rhythm section is sparked by Art Taylor, whose drums are especially vital to the free-wheeling drive of the Septet tracks. Joe Knight, a young Brooklyn pianist, takes limited solo space but but provides notably solid support throughout. Bass is shared by the formidable veteran, John Simmons and the highly-regarded newcomer from Chicago, Wilbur Ware (whose chorus on Lover Man offers a taste of just how much he has to offer.)

Finally, a note on a couple of those – as usual – cryptic titles for the originals. Kingston Lounge is a Brooklyn club in which Matthew has worked numerous dates; The Boys From Brooklyn honors the fact that a majority of the musicians on hand are from that borough; and Billy Massey left town before anyone could find out what Joram means.