Billboard : 05/12/1956
Score of 76

Basically, this is a re-mastering of a 10-inch LP (BLP 5011), adding one number not previously released (Evidence) and an additional take on each of three tunes (Lillie, Misterioso and Four in Hand). Three changes of personnel are involved in these sessions, with interesting shifts of emphasis in Jackson’s style. On one date, he was backed by the original members of the Modern Jazz Quartet; on the second and third, Thelonious Monk was the principal assistant. This LP contains some of the real high points of Jackson’s music-making in his pre-MJQ period. Try a ballad like Willow Weep for Me as a starter and then dip in anywhere.

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Liner Notes by Leonard Feather

As time advances and jazz progresses, the perspective from which modern music is viewed undergoes certain subtle modifications. That which was an exerting novelty in 1946 may be, to the 1956 ear, a tale that was told too often and has lost its charm in the telling. But the creative minds, the genuinely original ideas with which the jazz scene was endowed during the middle 1940s have taken on a sig­nificance that is clearer and more secure than that of any passing fad.

Such a mind is the mind of Milton Jackson, who to many of us in the 1940s was merely one of the first and best musicians to play what we then knew as bebop. Today, whether we hear him in person or survey his past accomplishments, the distinctive character of his work emerges in a brighter light. Bebop was the matter of his playing. At present we can examine the manner as well as the matter, and we can see that this, as much as the fact that he was the first vibraharpist to use bop ideas, is a determinant element in any analysis of his contribution.

When Dizzy Gillespie first brought him to New York from his native Detroit in 1945, Milton “Bags” Jackson was 22 years old; he had studied music at Michigan State, had played piano on several local jobs, and had begun to experiment on the vibraharp in what was, as Dizzy had been quick to observe, a style rhythmically, melodically and har­monicol1y compatible with that of Gillespie’s trumpet.

During the crescent years of bop, Milt lent this style to the tonal requirements of small combos led by Howard McGhee, Tadd Dameron, Thelonious Monk, and even, in 1949, to the big-band demands of Woody Herman, when he replaced Terry Gibbs in the Second Herd. But the 1950s saw him back with Dizzy for a couple of years, doubling on piano; then, from 1953, the renewal of a partnership with John Lewis brought belated recognition of his true character, as an idea was developed that soon was to reach maturity in the guise of the Modern Jazz Quartet.

The manner of Milt Jackson’s style is one that blends an ever-present beat with an innate gentleness. The vibes motor is kept running slowly, to retain for Milt the slow vibrato that has become characteristic, just as the no­ motor-at-all approach has become a part of Red Norvo. Grace notes abound, and are used, aptly, with infinite grace and subtlety. The percussive feel that one finds in such vibes men as Hampton and Gibbs is seldom to be observed in Jackson’s work; it is as though he strokes the notes rather than hits them.

On these two sides you will find what are, to my mind, the best records Milt Jackson has ever made. The reason can be found in the personnels involved. On one date the men were the original Modern Jazz Quartet members­ Milt, John Lewis, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke – plus, on some numbers, Lou Donaldson‘s aerostatic alto. On the second and third sessions, Thelonious Monk was the elder statesman in charge of operations.

Lillie, Bags’ own tune, represented in two different takes here, is a pretty melodic line played by the Quartet. On Tahiti Donaldson’s alto is added for a swinging minor-key Jackson original that shows the sympathy and similarities of the styles of Bags and John Lewis. What’s New is the Quartet again, slow, easy-going, the kind of number on which you can picture Bags looking up at the night club audience, as he does every so often, with that quizzical dead-pan reaction that seems to say, “Gee, that came out pretty nice, didn’t it!” Lou returns again for Bags’ Groove, a medium-tempo blues riff by Milt that has since become a modern jazz standard, with many other versions recorded but none to top this first flight on Blue Note wings. On The Scene, which uses the I Got Rhythm changes as scenery, shows the Bird-like inclinations of Donaldson and the legato excursions of Jackson at a fiery tempo that drops off into a simple, slow ending on the tonic.

The scene changes on Willow Weep For Me as Monk provides, with a couple of second-intervals, a reminder of his personality before Bags takes over for a medium-slow­ swinging solo. The departure from the melody is never more than slight, yet the stamp of the Jackson personality is never less than complete; here is one of his definitive ballad performances.

The music on Criss Cross and Eronel takes on a new mask, that of Monk the composer, writing unison lines for Shihab‘s alto and Bags’ vibes to lend the quintet its own sound, and adding a double-augmented here and there to mind you that this, after all, was Monk’s date. Misterioso, just a hair faster than the original version, as heard here in an alternate master, alternates piano and vibes notes, in an evocative and highly melodic main phrase at start and finish. Monk’s interposition of a note before each phrase of Bags’ blues solo is typically Monkish, a little masterpiece of understatement.

Evidence, the only number on this set never before re­leased on an LP, is a transliteration of Just You Just Me, starting with a rolling Jackson chorus fed by Monk’s pushing chords. The compliment is returned when Bags, supporting Monk’s solo, indulges in some pretty wild cross-feeds. The Monk-Jackson interplay is at its most stimulating here. After the second take of Lillie (personally, l have no preference; they’re both faultless) the proceedings are terminated with Monk’s Four In One, a busy theme handed out to Shihab and Bags, with a delightful release in which accented appog­giaturas abound.

I have let it be taken for granted that the rhythm men in these groups, all familiar names, need not be singled out for praise. Bassist of the caliber of Percy Heath, Al McKibbon, John Simmons, and drummers as distinguished as Klook, Blakey and Shadow Wilson have by now shown beyond reasonable doubt their ability to acquit themselves honorably on any session. What’s more important is that this is Bags’ LP, and they are Bags’ trustworthy support. Whether I were a drummer, a bass player or just a bellboy, I’d feel that here we have the easiest Bags in the world to carry.