American Record Guide
Martin Williams : 06/1958

Since the early forties, when Jimmy Blanton announced a new approach to the instrument, the jazz bass has become not only the rhythmic center of the ensemble (at least the small ensemble) but also, in solo, “blown” as a kind of horn in imitation of the solo style of the other instruments. This has led to the virtuosity of such men as Charlie Mingus and Red Mitchell and to a certain independence on the part of the bassist in ensemble and accompaniment. Wilbur Ware announces a reversal. His approach is rhythmic and percussive, his accompaniment sympathetically functional, his solos not cascades of notes in rapid runs but very personal lyric lines. At the same time, one finds an interest in unusual sequences of harmonies and displacement of meters and accents with something of the haunting originality of Thelonious Monk. And there is a change in technique, especially in his sometimes astonishing use of double stops (a conventionally trained bassist would know perfectly well that twelve bars of quarters and eighths in double-stops is unthinkable; a self-taught musician like Ware simply does it). Ware has done a lot of recording lately, but little of it has captured the kind of flights that he has done before audiences. His work here on Lullaby of the Leaves and The Man I Love does give an exciting definition (probably the best yet), of his approach. I hope I am wrong in detecting creeping conventionality in Johnny Griffin’s otherwise exuberantly personal tenor, but his combination of tenderness and burlesque on Body and Soul suggest I may well be. On the whole, an uneven LP, with the compensations I have noted.

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High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : 06/1958

On two counts this is a particularly impressive disc. It shows, for almost the first time, that the hard bop school, which usually depends on overwhelming the listener with an inescapable barrage of sound, is capable of imaginative development and shaded projection. Both tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and alto saxophonist John Jenkins, the only horns in the group, play with unaccustomed grace and warmth.

Point two is that although the leader of the group, Ware, is a bassist, he refuses to be a tiresome solo virtuoso; and when he does step out alone his cleanly expressed solo lines are closely integrated with the rest of the group. This well-programed disc, produced by musicians usually heard on routine blowing sessions, shows how much more rewarding thoughtful planning can be.

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Metronome
Jack Maher : 10/1958

The Chicago scene is amply covered by this Wilbur Ware LP; it shows the heavy predominance of bop that has grabbed the mid-western jazz circuit.

Ware and Junior Mance do the best playing on this date. Wilbur is exceptional on his solos on Body and Soul and Lullaby of the Leaves, but all his solo work, like his time and his choice of notes in the rhythmic line, has that strong security that marks him as a pro. Junior Mance plays intelligently and with a happy, earthy feeling on the gospel-like blues, State.

Johnny Griffin plays well on that same tune, but seems to have a tendency to run through chords on the rest of the tracks. John Jenkins’ emulation of Charlie Parker is obvious; it’s too bad though that he had to pick the strained period in Bird’s life to copy.

CODA: Bassist Ware shows class and exceptional imagination in his private outing.

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Toronto Star (Toronto, ON)
Roger Feather : 04/26/1958 : Two stars

If you can get through the very bad first tune on this LP called Mamma-Daddy, which is played at about 96 bars or 382 beats per minute, the album gets better. But unfortunately not much.

The so-called “Chicago sound” is akin to the “hard bop” style. It is earthy, blue-based with generally close ensemble and a lot of drive. Griffin has played better and Jenkins has yet to impress this listener. Both develop from Charlie Parker through Rollins and have a tendency to play too many notes. The drummers are just adequate but pianist Mance, a decisive, interesting musician, provides some of the better moments on the album.

Ware has sounded better in the past. He is a very good rhythm man but lacks any real imagination on solos. He has a tight, hard sound which, although distinct, lacks feeling. He solos doggedly throughout Lullaby of the Leaves and most of Body and Soul. He plays better on The Man I Love and does his best work on 31st and State.

Four of the eight tunes are thinly constructed originals, the best being Be-Ware, which has a good Mance solo. There is some spirit on the album and the music usually swings hard, but the message is neither particularly pleasant nor important and the musicianship is far from exciting.

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Westbury Times (Westbury, NY)
Dick Levy : 06/19/1958 : Rated V plus

Featured with bassist Ware are John Jenkins, Johnny Griffin, Junior Mance and Wilbur Campbell or Frank Dunlop. Ware’s first LP effort as a leader comes off as a resounding success. His big contributions come in a relaxed Man I Love, his very funky original 31st and State and a medium tempo Lullaby Of The Leaves. In Leaves it’s Ware all the way in a brilliant exhibition. Griffin is expressive in Body and Soul, Jenkins almost steals the LP by his moving work in State and his two originals. Mance is pulsating throughout, especially in the frantic Momma-Daddy. An important and productive LP.

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Down Beat : 05/29/1958
Martin Williams : 3.5 stars

You might say that Ware calls every bassist since Blanton to account; at any rate, his approach is a kind of reversal. Not only did Blanton’s influence gradually make the bass the rhythmic center of the ensemble (the small ensemble at least), but led to an attack that meant “blowing” the instrument in imitation of the solo style of the horns. On the one hand, this makes for virtuosi like Mingus and Red Mitchell; on the other, a certain emotional independence in accompaniment and ensemble.

Ware’s bassic conception is percussive and rhythmic. Sometimes he sounds like a man who has heard no bass playing since the earthy work of Bill Johnson in the twenties or of Israel Crosby in the thirties, and gone on from there (but his unique touch can remind one of Nelson Boyd). His accompaniments are sympathetically functional and original in quality. His solos are not cascades of notes in rapid runs but often simple and passionate lyric lines. He has something of the same basic interest in displacement of accents and rhythmic shiftings and in unusual sequence of harmonies that one hears in Thelonious Monk. Then, there is technical change on a more obvious level in his sometimes amazing use of double stops (the student knows well that twelve-bars of quarters and eighths in double stops is a fantastic idea; the largely self-taught Ware simply does it).

The kind of flights that he has done in clubs give better evidence of his abilities than anything he has yet done on records, but his work on Lullaby of the Leaves and The Man I Love is an exciting exposition of his approach—perhaps the best yet available.

I hope I err in hearing a creeping conventionality in Griffin’s exuberantly personal tenor, but there is, say, a solo on Jenkins’ composition Quarters and a combination of tenderness and parody of cliches on the Body warhorse that suggest I may be.

An uneven LP with the compensation I have noted.

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Liner Notes by Orrin Keepnews

Chicago has been a most important place-name in jazz for some forty years, beginning as an appealingly rip-roaring town for musicians to emigrate to up the Mississippi from New Orleans. Thus, in the 1920s, it became the home of such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton, and a great many young Chicagoans grew up firmly enmeshed in their music.

But time and music move on, and it should not be at all surprising that in the 1950s the most notable Chicago jazz sound is very much something else again…

The group of modern Chicagoans heard on this album have had much experience working together, and have strikingly similar approaches to jazz, so that they are joined by much more than just coincidence of birthplace. On the other hand, musicians of this caliber have an appeal by no means limited to the old home town: Wilbur Ware, for example, has of late been making a significant impression on New York; and Johnny Griffin’s recent stint with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers has helped make his remarkable abilities known in many cities.

This album was Ware’s idea. Having long been convinced that he is one of the most important new bassists in a good many years, we at Riverside were most pleased to have a vehicle for showcasing his talents. As a sideman, Wilbur has always been very much in evidence, a natural result of the notably firm beat he lays down and the unusual, genuinely creative solos he constructs. As a leader, he has been convinced to take a bit—but not too much—more of the spotlight. He does solo extensively on Body and Soul and The Man I Love, extracting surprising freshness from these often-used pieces. And Lullaby of the Leaves is a tour de force, turned over almost entirely to the bass (but it took considerable effort to talk him into that one).

For the rest, though, Ware played down his solo role, and avoided any suggestions of unusual recording balance to favor the bass sound. What he wanted—and what he got—was an album straightforwardly devoted to the kind of jazz he feels most at home with, which does happen to be a music in which a strong bass plays a very key part. It is a relaxed, decidedly earthy jazz (dare I mention that much-abused word: “funky”?), generally close to the “hard bop” school, but heavily colored by a feeling for the blues—particularly those gospel-tinged aspects of jazz sometimes referred to as “church blues.” Thus, while quite modern in concept, it is actually also quite timeless, often specifically reaching back (though perhaps not deliberately so) to early jazz roots. All this is what is meant here by the term: the Chicago sound.

And all this stems naturally enough from Ware’s own colorful music background. Born in September, 1923, he was raised by a “sanctified preacher,” the Reverend Turner, who played several instruments and who started Wilbur on banjo early: before he was four, Ware was accompanying the congregation (his debut was on Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam). While still a schoolboy, Wilbur learned drums (he still plays them on occasion) and several reeds, and played violin in the church starting on an instrument built for him by Turner “out of veneer wood, but with real violin strings.” At 10, he mastered a “lemon-crate bass” also made by the preacher. A couple of years later, Turner—obviously a remarkable artisan—built him a real bass, demonstrated “a few chord changes,” and the same night young Ware was playing it in the church.

It was with that bass that Wilbur turned “professional”—working with string groups and “tramp bands” on street corners and in roadhouses. He was already steeped in jazz: he had heard Duke Ellington and Roy Eldridge, and would hang out behind the Grand Terrace, which was close to his home, to listen to Fletcher Henderson’s band. He recalls being impressed by bassist Billy Taylor’s work on an Ellington record, Harmony in Harlem, and, somewhat later, first hearing the great Jimmy Blanton on Jack the Bear (“I learned that solo right away!”). Another bass player he mentions is Chicagoan Israel Crosby, whom he did not hear until 1946, but from whom he “got lots of ideas.”

In that year Wilbur, just out of military service, really moved onto the jazz scene, working during the late ’40s with many of the major jazz names who hit town and being heard at such spots as the Brass Rail and Lipp’s Lower Level (more recently known as the Blue Note). At the Flame Lounge there was much jamming with Griffin, Wilbur Campbell and Junior Mance, and between 1953 and ’55 they were all prominently involved in that unique Chicago institution, the “Breakfast Dance,” that kept that club going all day on Mondays. Ware, Griffin and Mance were together in blues-singer Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s band, and in ’54-’55 the two Wilburs formed the house rhythm section at the Beehive. One memorable stand there found them and Griffin working as a unit with Thelonious Monk. In 1956 Ware came on to New York, where among other things he was an original member of Monk’s quartet in its celebrated engagement at the Five Spot.

Johnny Griffin, outstanding among tenormen for the length and fluency of his line, was made available for this recording through the courtesy of Blue Note Records. Since then, however, he has become an exclusive Riverside artist. Julian (Junior) Mance, a driving young pianist, is best known for his work with Cannonball Adderley’s quintet. Wilbur Campbell, still based in Chicago, is a firm and imaginative drummer. When he was unavailable for one session, Frank Dunlop (a ‘foreigner’ born in Buffalo, NY) stepped in. John Jenkins, an exceedingly promising alto, is younger than his Chicago colleagues but had played with them often and was a most welcome addition to the group. Together they have created an album that is certainly a credit to the fine old name of Chicago, and that is by any name a stand-out jazz effort.