American Record Guide
Martin Williamson : February, 1958

Many of the “modern” jazz musicians are concerned (healthily and, necessarily for them, self-consciously I think) with their roots in blues and church music. This quality of earthiness they call “funk”. They also talk about “soul”, which means something like depth of feeling and conviction. Vibraphonist Milt Jackson is a man who need not worry, it seems to me, about either of these things, nor about a commanding presence nor individuality. (If there’s anything he might give a thought to it could be the structure of a few of his lines.) But, somehow, a great deal of what happens on this record is either sluggish or almost contrived. Half of it features scores for nine pieces with several soloists by Quincy Jones and the rest of it (the better part) is by a sextet with the frequently excellent tenor saxist Lucky Thompson. Perhaps everyone was too concerned with the kind of rhythm that was supposed to be generated, and the manner and mood that were supposed to be conveyed.

I have nothing but respect for the care with which Atlantic goes about its recording work, but I confess that I think some of the very casually got together dates Jackson has made for other labels have produced better music than these did.

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Army Times
Tom Scanlan : 09/28/1957

Milt Jackson, vibes man with The Modern Jazz Quartet, is a wonderful musician with swinging, down home roots, and it is always a pleasure, for me, to hear him apart from the arty, anything but down home atmosphere of The Modern Jazz Quartet. Thus I strongly recommend a new record accurately entitled “Milton Jackson Plenty, Plenty Soul“.

Side two, which features a sextet (there are nine musicians on the first side) is especially fine. Members of the sextet are Lucky Thompson, Joe Newman, Horace Silver, Oscar Pettiford and Connie Kay. They open with Sermonette, the delightfully funky original by Julian Adderley which received a fine big band treatment by Quincy Jones (ABC Paramount 149). This tune somehow reminds you of Give Me That Old Time Religion and When The Saints Go Marchin’ In at the same time. It has a nice down home feel. An up tempo swinger, The Spirit-Feel, also must have special attention. On the other side, an original baalad by Bags called Heartstrings is a good example of Jackson’s care and good taste, and Boogity, Boogity moves very happily, happily.

The album is well recorded and the liner notes by Nat Hentoff well worth reading.

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Billboard : 09/16/1957
Spotlight on… selection

A moving session that often veers to the blues and contains deeply probing, swinging solo commentary. Jackson is in superb form and colleagues Lucky Thompson, J. Newman, J. Cleveland, H. Silver also show to advantage. Sales potential is excellent. Set has elements that will please not only modern jazz clientele but more traditionally inclined as well.

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Cashbox : 09/28/1957

The pressing is vibraharpist Milt Jackson’s second sessions for Atlantic and programs worthy examples of the artist’s skillful command of swing, blues and ballad expressions. One side features Jackson as part of a nine-man combo (Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Percy Heath, bass; Joe Newman, trumpet), the other in a sextet format (Horace Silver, piano and Newman are carried over from the flip side). Quincy Jones‘ arrangements keep things always eventful, Jackson wrote four of the seven selections. Excellent jazz issue.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 10/06/1957

The competition for the cream of the jazz talent is getting tougher and tougher as the floodtide of albums rolls in on the buyers. The output of LPs is running almost equal to the singles. Exclusive recording contracts are channeling some companies into a narrow line. There’s a tendency to sameness.

All this gives reason for gratitude when an outstanding jazz album comes along. Such a one is Milt Jackson‘s Plenty, Plenty Soul.

Sure, it’s a soupy title, but the music isn’t. Credit must go to the producer, Nesuhi Ertegun, who corralled the men for this session.

On the opening side, vibist Jackson melds with three saxers by Frank Foster, Ronnie Peters and Sahib Shihab; Joe Newman‘s trumpet, Jimmy Cleveland on trombone, Horace Silver on piano, Oscar Pettiford‘s bass, and the drumming of Art Blakey. Three numbers by this group.

On the flip side, the music is by a sextet: Jackson, Silver, and Newman with Lucky Thompson on tenor sax, Oscar Pettiford, bass, and Connie Kay on drums. Quite a bit of space to list names, but with these names it’s worth it.

Quincy Jones did the arranging on the seven numbers that include four by Jackson. Only one, a moody thing called Heartstrings, is keyed to the vibes. The other six are power packed. Big moments are the Lucky Thompson solo lines, particularly his interplay with Pettiford on Blues at Twilight. Silver follows with a soulful piano.

This is one of those big records. Don’t pass it up.

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Providence Journal
Philip C. Gunion : 09/29/1957

If John Lewis is the brains of the The Modern Jazz Quartet – and he certainly is – then Milt Jackson can be called its heart and soul.

His newest record is Milt Jackson: Plenty, Plenty Soul, an Atlantic release. This is Jackson outside the frame of reference of the MJQ, but as tasty and thoughtful as ever.

Jackson is a master of the subtle jazz phrase which never pounds your ear but leaves a lasting impression. When he is merely caressing a few notes he can generate mor excitement than the average musician can when he is all out and running down hill.

In his hands the vibraharp is capable of taking on all the colors of a large orchestra and all of the feeling it is possible to extract from music.

With Milt on this truly wonderful album are Ronnie Peters, alto; Frank Foster and Lucky Thompson, tenor; Sahib Shihab, baritone; Joe Newman, trumpet; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Horace Silver, piano; Percy Heath and Oscar Pettiford, bass, and Art Blakey and Connie Kay drums. Not all appear on all sides, of course.

The program consists of jazz originals by Jackson, Quincy Jones and Julian Adderley (Cannonball to you). This is all good stuff, excellently recorded, and the record is is highly recommended to all who love jazz.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 10/13/1957

There is much of the spirit of the MJQ in another album just released by Atlantic, and featuring another MJQ star. This is Milt Jackson‘s Plenty, Plenty Soul. In addition to Jackson, personnel includes Lucky Thompson, Joe Newman, Horace Silver, Jimmy Cleveland, and Percy Heath and Connie Kay, also of the MJQ. I have never been one who has held much with vibes but Jackson demonstrates here how his instrument can generate inner excitement without cloying up a combo’s sound with a tone that, simultaneously aggressive and oversweet, often mars a real jazz line.

This is, in brief, one of the really good albums of the year, whether you dig vibes or not, being memorable not only for Jackson’s musicianship and restraint but for the very delicate, appreciative horn work of Newman and Cleveland.

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Down Beat : 10/31/1957
Ralph J. Gleason : 5 stars

This is the sort of album which makes reviewing by the star system particularly difficult. There should be some exceptional merit badge for this sort of thing – Five Stars Plus or Too Good to Rate. Without exception, the tracks on this LP provide rewarding listening on multiple levels of experience and throughout numerous repetitions.

Jackson, as is pointed out in Nat Hentoff’s somewhat wordy notes (and when is HE going to get his own 12-inch LP?) brings to playing his own special atmosphere – what André Hodeir calls “the Jackson climate.” Louis Armstrong has it (that’s what cause Krupa to remark that when Louis started blowing in a session, it was like somebody turned on a current), and so do many other soloists. But they are the superior ones. They are the ones who can survive any crippled-up accompaniment and blow something worthwhile. There are other great artists who have to have help with their talent for optimum display.

Someone like Jackson, despite his self-sufficiency, can be assisted by accompaniment, and on this LP, believe me, he is. The entire album is an interesting example of how superior soloists can be superior accompanists.

The tunes range from a lovely romantic ballad, Milt’s Heartstrings, to Ignunt Oil, for which the battered word “funky” is demanded.

There are beautiful passages from all the soloists, especially Newman and Silver. The wonderfully earthy altoist on the first three tracks must be Cannonball Adderley though he is tabbed Ronnie Peters in the personnel.

It is interesting to consider how, in a group such as the MJQ, a virtuoso like Jackson impresses his own personality. Conversely, it is interesting to see how the aura of the MJQ surrounds this session even permeating to the piano playing of Silver who gets an almost Lewisian economy on the final track.

Blakey contributes some fascinating counterrhythms on the opening three tracks, especially an electrifying double-time passage in the first tune in which he grabs the pulse and shakes everything up for long than you think possible. And in Boogity in a passage behind Milt, Blakey runs a series of rim shots up and down the scale like an ME-109 making a run over an airfield and strafing grounded planes.

By no means don’t miss this album.

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Liner Notes by Nat Hentoff

Milt Jackson a while back took part in a friend’s record date. There were contractual reasons why Milt’s name couldn’t be used, but the leader quickly solved the problem of what pseudonym to put in the notes by simply calling Milt “Brother Soul.”

The question of Bags’ “soul” came up again in a conversation with Dizzy Gillespie. “Why, didn’t you know?” asked Dizzy. “Milt is Sanctified. That’s why he plays so soulful. His whole family is Sanctified.”

When a man is Sanctified, that’s another way of saying that his early – and in some cases, continuing – religious experience was absorbed in one of the Churches of God in Christ. In these churches, the services are based largely on music, and it is music of a releasing freeness, music in which the congregation collectively and individually gives from within the innermost reservoirs of the spirit and receives in turn the strength of having been opened to the honesty and joy of each other. The most deeply swinging, exultant gospel singing comes from the Churches of God in Christ and from the similarly uninhibited church units that are the members of the Holiness Churches.

It is not generally realized that a number of modern jazzmen first felt the passionate possibilities of self-expression in improvised music while still small children at Sanctified churches.

“Soul” is clearly the most essential quality of a jazzman, and Milt has as much of that open emotional strength as anyone in his jazz generation, and more than most. There are other corollary qualities that are also needed. One is an almost automatic dedication to playing. A jazzman whose desire to play is limited only or mainly by the expectation of a paycheck is apt to be more a craftsman than a creator. The players are those who find whatever informal sessions exist wherever they themselves may be, or who, if necessary, create their own sessions.

Bags loves to play. There was an evening at Music Inn at Lenox one summer when several musicians who hadn’t had enough of playing at a concert, headed into a nearby town looking for ad lib room. They found a place, but as could be expected, there were no vibes. Bags, undaunted, wailed at the piano. “he may not have had a whole lot of technique,” reported one of the other musicians later, “but what he played was pure soul and I wouldn’t have traded that for any number of runs. That’s another thing. Everything he played was right to the point. It was as wholly, unwastefully swinging as anything I’ve heard.”

There is also a certain stick-to-itiveness, as ancient newspapermen used to say, about Bags. Woody Herman recalls a night in Cuba when Bags was in the band. “He was using a set of vibes we’d gotten for nothing, and you might call it a collapsible model. In the middle of his solo on one number, the legs of the set started to spread out in opposite directions. Bags followed that set down, playing all the way. When he finished, he was almost on his hands and knees.” The instrument, after all, still was soundable and Bags hadn’t finished his solo, so he saw no reason to stop until he had.

Woody, who is far from an impressionable leader, having worked with hundreds of musicians under the most revealing of conditions, still shakes his head about Bags. “He’s a fantastic musician. And one of the things about him that impressed me was his great knowledge of tunes. He was and is a young man, but he remembers songs I’ve long forgotten. He remembers all about a song, the bridge, the right changes. That depth of repertoire is a long-lost quality with most young players, but not with Milt.”

Yet another aspect of Bags, and I don’t know whether this has ever been printed before, is that he has perfect pitch. “When I first met him,” said Dizzy, “he was about the first musician I’d known who had perfect pitch.” Perfect pitch alone doesn’t make a musician any more than possession of the most demonically complete I.B.M. machine necessarily makes a statistician. But when a jazzman has the other qualities, perfect pitch is a fructifying bonus.

An essay on Bags, the more the subject comes into relief, could continue to an unconscionable length. A few more points, however. Bags is somewhat like Gerry Mulligan or Monk or Coleman Hawkins in that he possesses and can project what might be termed as inherent theatricality. It’s not self-conscious posing, but rather an instantly arresting power of personality (and music as expressing that personality) that he projects without thinking about it. André Hodeir, in Jazz-Hot, writes that when Milt begins to play, “it’s not necessary that an electrician envelop him in a reddish light.” There is “the Jackson Climate” which is born in himself and is imposed, Hodeir adds, on even the least informed listener. Later in his essay, Hodeir continues his point: “Certain jazzmen, and not the least, succeed in creating a climate in the course of an exposition (of a tune) but if they have to connect an improvised chorus, they’re not able to sustain that climate. With Bugs, there’s nothing to worry about. The Jackson climate once established, the chorus develops as if it were in its natural milieu. Bags impregnates himself with the musical atmosphere that he has brought into being and he draws the substance of that atmosphere for his improvisation.” In other words, Bags is that rare artist who is always himself, and whose force of individuality, particularly in a blowing session, can do much to determine the gestalt of the situation.

There’s more to be said – Bags’ lyricism, his command of the blues (or is it the other way around?), his rhythmic sensibility – and for a long, detailed analytical survey of Bags, I would strongly recommend the two-part essay, Bags’ Microgroove, by André Hodeir in the March and April, 1956, issues of the French magazine, Jazz-Hot.

Bags is a shy man, and is not apt to become communicative verbally until he has known someone for a while. I recall a description by British critic Tony Hall in the Record Mirror in the course of a favorable review he was writing of Bags’ previous Atlantic LP, Ballads & Blues (Atlantic 1243): “When I met Milt in Paris last November, wandering sad-faced around the Club St. Germain-des-Prés, singing obligatos to what the resident group was playing. I asked him how he felt about that particular date. He blinked behind his specs, shrugged and said: “Man, it’s business.” No more, no less.

I’m sure Bags had more to say, good or bad or both, but it takes time for him to decide whether any musical occasion can be at all clarified by verbal discussion. So, since this was a casual meeting and a casual question, he decided with characteristic functional brevity to leave the subject verbally opaque.

In talking about this set, Bags had a good deal more to say. like his colleagues in the Modern Jazz Quartet, Bags is critical of his work and especially of sessions associated with his name. Yet he feels able to say that he’s “very happy about this one. I’ve been a firm believe in good support; I chose the men for the date; and I feel it all worked out – the arrangements, the playing, and everything.” Quincy Jones was the arranger and wrote Boogity Boogity and Blues At Twilight. The other originals are by Bags except for Julian Adderley‘s thoroughly appropriate Sermonette.

The first track, Milt recalls, “was to have a title that would fit the whole idea of the album. What is ‘soul’ in jazz? It’s what comes from within; it’s what happens when the inner part of you comes out. It’s the part of playing you can’t get out of the books and studies. In my case, I believe that what I heard and felt in the music of my church – I went until I was full-grown – was the most powerful influence on my musical career. Everyone wants to know where I got that funky style. Well, it came from church. The music I heard there was open, relaxed, impromptu – soul music.”

Heartstrings underlines the soft, flowingly romantic side of Bags’ spirit. He is one of the master ballad players in jazz, because it is a form of expression he can identify with. Being a direct spirit, he does not feel it is square or unhip to give way to this kind of lyricism when he feels it. “I also started to write the word to it,” he recalls, “but I never finished them out, not yet anyway. It has something to do with ‘You’re playing around with my heartstrings.'”

The Spirit-Feel was only marked “up tempo” as a title at the time of the conversation with Milt. I had recently interviewed Mahalia Jackson, and she used a recurring term, “spirit-feel,” that stayed in mind. Milt thought it might fit this track and the overall intention of the album. Ignunt Oil is a idiomatic term for whiskey.

A couple of other questions remained. In print and in conversation, Milt has long been referred to familiarly as Bags, but I’d never heard any explanation of how he had acquired the sobriquet. One explanation was that when he joined Dizzy’s band, the uniform had hung baggily around his spare frame. But Bags’ recollection goes back to Detroit after he’d been released from the Army. “I did quite a lot of celebrating with a lot of late hours, so I had little bags that had gathered under my eyes. The musicians called me Bags and it stuck.”

I was also curious as to what disadvantages – as a corollary to all the obvious advantages – there were in having perfect pitch. “It’s mostly,” Bags answered, “in listening to records. If the turntable is a little too slow and I know how it’s supposed to be, it becomes irritating.” It’s fortunate, turntable whims aside, for many record companies and musicians that Bags isn’t a critic.

And the final query was Bags’ reaction to occasional comments by jazz musicians and critics that being in the MJQ holds him down. “No, not actually,” he answered without hesitation. “It may not sound or look like it when you’re listening out front because it’s all so well planned, but I still get to play more or less what I want to play. I’m relaxed. I’ve always been able to adjust myself to a situation. When I first joined the MJQ, there were times when I looked at the planning as a handicap, but now I’ve come to look on it as an asset. In terms of business, and musically too. Discipline can be a good thing, and having been under discipline can be a help when you do let loose.”

John Lewis adds, “Milt is not only a consistently fine solo improviser, but he is an excellent group player too. And he keeps on developing. In all areas.”

The musicians on the date, it need only be further said, all belong. They’re all free, soul brothers.