Billboard : 04/28/1956
Spotlight on… selection

Atlantic has put its best feet forward by issuing this disk concurrently with the Chris Connor set. Both figure to hit pay dirt right quick, and they’ll draw attention to the rest of the diskery’s package line. The MJQ audience is big, and getting much, much bigger, and the unique, gentle art of these knowing jazzmen gets broader and deeper with every issue. The most ambitious offering here is the title selection, a little suite for four parts with the feeling of Italian renaissance music permeating the jazz or vice versa. The cover is appropriately smart.

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Cashbox : 05/05/1956

The Modern Jazz Quartet which, on the whole, maintains a slow pace in jazz artistry makes its debut on Atlantic a most impressive one. Working with material that can be closely examined with a jazz microscope, the boys set a leisurely atmosphere which results in a most intimate relationship between performer and listener. There’s plenty to do for Milt Jackson on the vibraharp; and he does it with clear, ringing tones. Beautiful sound. Should be a big seller among jazzophiles.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 06/07/1956

The best small groups in modern jazz have been keeping busy recently recording and the result is a particularly good set of LPs showing what they have been up to.

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The Modern Jazz Quartet‘s new Atlantic LP Fontessa offers two of the reflective compositions that have marked the gorup’s style in Versailles and the title number. There’s a remarkable version of Bluesology and some great solos by Milt Jackson.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 05/12/1956

The music of the MJQ has often bene called anemic and fussy. But the truth is, for the close listener, this subtle, creative group has as much tough interplay and more naked emotion than almost any other small group currently at work in jazz. John Lewis, in addition to being among the ablest jazz composters (his melodic invention is unequalled), is a continually touching soloist. Milt Jackson is nonpareil on his instrument, making his almost wild improvisations go down as properly as a lady finger. And the rhythm section of Percy Heath and Connie Kay is a triumph of uncluttered, firm motion. Three originals and four standards, including Lewis’ four-part suite, Fontessa. The MJQ’s best record to date.

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Down Beat : 05/16/1956
Nat Hentoff : 5 stars

John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay in their first album for Atlantic. The recorded sound is excellent, and since John had access during this date to a seven-foot Steinway grand, his own piano sound is heard to better advantage than on any previous MJQ recording. This is a particular virtue in view of the fact that John’s “touch” is matched by very few of his jazz contemporaries. The opening Versailles, cut in one take, is a heady example of swirling interplay. Angel Eyes is sensitive without being sentimental. Most of the first side is taken by the suite, Fontessa, which is also the title of the album. The flowing virtues of this gently imaginative work have been detailed in these pages before during a review of the Modern Jazz Society Town Hall concert.

Rainbow, as do several other tracks here, featuring Milt extensively, and there is no one in jazz today on his instrument to Milt in his mastery of ballads, in his depth, concentration, and personalization of feeling. On Bluesology, dig Lewis’ entrance and in Lewis’ solo – as in all of his work – note the economy of his playing, the absence of extraneous material. Note, too, on all tracks, the remarkably compact strength Lewis’ rhythmic pulsation, and also what he does behind Milt’s solos, as on Willow. This is one of the few LPs in the past year that I’d be willing to bet will be as enjoyably durable five years from now as it is now.

The MJQ will quite probably have evolved considerably by then, but their quality is indicated by how well they fashion their intermediary steps.

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Liner Notes by Ralph J. Gleason

When John Lewis stated his jazz ideals for the 1955 Metronome Yearbook, Jazz 1955, he said “They stem from what led to and became Count Basie‘s band of the thirties and the forties. This group produced an integration of ensemble playing which projected – and sounded like – the spontaneous playing of ideas which were the personal expression of each member of the band rather than the arrangers or composers. This band had some of the greatest jazz soloists exchanging and improvising ideas with and counter to the ensemble and the rhythm section, the whole permeated with the folk-blues element developed to a most exciting degree.”

“I don’t think it is possible to plan or make that kind of thing happen. It is a natural product. All we can do is reach and strive for it.”

In that statement, I think, John Lewis has hit upon one of the most unique virtues of the Modern Jazz Quartet – its spontaneous unity. There have been relatively few groups in recent jazz history which have achieved the submersion of the individual talents into a group sound, feeling and existence which is actually more than the sum of its parts. The Basie bands that Lewis spoke of quality; at times the Goodman small groups, Ellington‘s band, Woody Herman‘s First Herd, and more recently the Erroll Garner Trio (when Fats Heard was with him), Gerry Mulligan‘s Quartet and the current Oscar Peterson trio. They are all groups which have had and have a particularly happy amalgamation of individual talents stewed, brewed and cooked together long enough to emerge as a single thriving, throbbing organism. And yet the individual was never lost in them. He was made greater by his contribution to the whole.

The Modern Jazz Quartet today is just that. It is indicative of their oneness that they are able to dispense with the use of microphones and loud speakers in the night clubs (except for announcements); their balance is so good they do not need the help of electronics to make them heard. The true sound, the true note and the true blend of sound can fill a room by itself and does.

When the Modern Jazz Quartet returned to San Francisco and the Black Hawk in the early months of 1956, there was considerable anxiousness to discover what effect the change in personnel had had upon the group. The new drummer was relatively unknown and his predecessor was one of the most influential of modern drummers. Delightful as the group had sounded before, it sounded even better now because at last it had achieved that unity of feeling and purpose which Lewis has spoken of and which breathes the life blood of true art into the performance, making it a living thing, existing on its own, over and above the individual parts.

Now that the modern jazz musician has begun to realize he is accepted and his music is here to stay, he has been able to create with confidence and with the coolness of knowledge, not fright. The result is music that is beautiful, exciting and expressive. Modern jazz has grown up and one of its most beautiful, exciting and expressive examples is the Modern Jazz Quartet. What the Modern Jazz Quartet does is to express the ability to whisper, rather than shout. It is a delicate group, but it has surprising strength. When Milt Jackson plays a blues, such as his classic Bluesology, it has all the earthy swing and solidarity of Basie. Still it remains the kind of music you can play for your grandmother, neatly answering the criticism that jazz is raucous or just noisy. This jazz is fragile, restrained, delicate but never dull. The triangle (which on the drums of another, might well be an annoyance) is present but not pervasive with Connie Kay. His tiny cymbals are not an affectation but are utilized for the sound they make and only where that sound should be.

There is humor with this restraint and there is sadness too. The blues they have are the bluest and when they are happy they jump for joy. No quartet can have the impact of a 17 piece band. The comparison is ridiculous. Yet, in its own special way, the Modern Jazz Quartet has the excitement of a big band, its marvelous propulsion and universal beat.

And to those who will listen, the sound these four men make has the same shattering effect as a line by Donne or a sketch by Picasso. They have so successfully explored the possibilities of the small group that whatever comes next will have to be radically different, indeed.