Tag Archives: Hackensack

Vinyl Spotlight: The Prestige Jazz Quartet (Prestige 7108) Original Pressing

Original 1957 pressing
“446 W. 50th ST., N.Y.C.” on both labels
Deep groove on both sides
“RVG” stamped in dead wax

Personnel:

Teddy Charles, vibraphone
Mal Waldron, piano
Addison Farmer, bass
Jerry Segal, drums

Recorded June 22 and June 28, 1957 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey

1	Take Three Parts Jazz
2	Meta-Waltz
3	Dear Elaine
4	Friday the 13th

Selection: “Dear Elaine” (Waldron)

For Collectors

Prestige released numerous LPs in the late ’50s, many of which stand today as interesting mixes of rarity, low demand, and musical excellence. This album is one example of that. I first heard it on Spotify and instantly took to it, but the master tape had noticeably degraded by the time of its digital mastering. So it became a priority of mine to seek out an original. One weekend afternoon last winter I was checking out a Swedish jazz dealer’s website and there it was, an original pressing touting VG++ condition. The asking price was a tad high so I talked the seller down a little and about ten days later the LP arrived at my doorstep. Quiet vinyl is a must for quiet music like this, and as you will be able to hear in the clips above, this one’s definitely a keeper.

I was instantly a fan of the album art as well, which portrays a serene scene of silhouettes that to me appear to be practicing tai chi. What connection the cover is intended to have with the music I do not know, though I do find that its grey, clouded imagery complements the mood of the music quite well.

For Music Lovers

A pair of forward-thinking composers, Teddy Charles and Mal Waldron first recorded together in January 1956 for Atlantic Records release 1229, The Teddy Charles Tentet. A year later they collaborated on five albums in just as many months, four of which were recorded for Bob Weinstock’s Prestige and New Jazz labels (Olio, Prestige 7084; Coolin’, New Jazz 8216; Teo, Prestige 7104). The last album in the run is presented here, captured on two dates in late June 1957.

The soft timbres of The Prestige Jazz Quartet convey a calming mood throughout, even during the more uptempo moments. The album has experimental leanings that weren’t yet trendy in 1957, but the sparse solos hardly beg for the listener’s attention. The quartet arrangement with vibraphone makes for a spacious atmosphere that lends itself well to the nuances of the vibes. Engineer Rudy Van Gelder has also set the drums further back in the mix than usual, making even more room for the dreamy echoes of the vibes to resonate.

The program begins with a trio of movements penned by Charles (“Take Three Parts Jazz”), followed by a pair of Waldron compositions (“Meta-Waltz” and “Dear Elaine”) and concluding with a lesser-known Thelonious Monk tune, “Friday the Thirteenth”. “Route 4”, the first third of Charles’ piece, is an ode to the highway traveled by hundreds of the Big Apple’s finest jazz musicians traveling to and from Van Gelder’s home studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. The piece’s other bookend, “Father George”, refers to another passageway between the city and Van Gelder’s, the George Washington Bridge. “Lyriste”, the title of the middle section, is an invented word of Charles’ crafting that joins ‘lyrical’ and ‘triste’. In accordance with the titles, perhaps Charles intended the piece to serve as a soundtrack for a somber commute back to the island after a long day of recording, where use of the word ‘triste’ might have been meant to suggest that trips to Van Gelder’s were for many of the musicians a welcome break from the routine of city life.

Accompanying Charles and Waldron are bassist Addison Farmer (twin brother of trumpeter Art Farmer) and drummer Jerry Segal. Segal avoids complicating things by playing with tasteful restraint throughout, and Farmer more than plays his part by delivering an impressive solo on “Meta-Waltz”. Side B begins with “Dear Elaine”, an apprehensive sprinkling of notes that seems to provide a window into the mind of a cautious courter. Closing the album, Waldron’s regular use of refrain on “Friday the Thirteenth” creates a comforting sense of familiarity that culminates in an inspired hammering of adjacent keys. (In the original 1953 recording of the tune, Monk is in his prime, rightly delivering an astonishing solo, though there’s something about hearing that melody played on the vibes that makes more sense to me than hearing it on Rollins’ sax…what do you think?)

Charles and Waldron would collaborate sporadically moving forward, but this would be the last time the entire ensemble would be in a recording studio together. Despite it being a short-lived, lesser-known experiment, the Prestige Jazz Quartet was a group of exceptional talent that deserves its rightful place in the storybook of modern jazz.

Epilogue

When I was preparing to take photos of the album jacket last week, I heard something jostling around inside, so I took a peek and to my surprise there was a small piece of paper inside with what appeared to be two interviews dated 1958 and typed in Swedish (the country the record came from upon my purchase). I then thought it would be cool to post a scan of the paper and maybe send out an S.O.S. for help translating it, then I thought of Google Translate and decided to do the translation myself, which I am presenting here.

The reviews would have originally been published in two Swedish magazines, Estrad (“Bandstand” in English) and OJ (“WOW”), and both were written by well-known Swedish jazz musicians: saxophonist/arranger Harry Arnold, whose resume included working with Quincy Jones, and pianist/composer Lars Werner. The original owner of the record must have been in the habit of typing up reviews for all the records they owned (perhaps to make up for the fact that they couldn’t read the English liner notes). Arnold seems the more opinionated of the two, possibly due to being more experienced and knowledgeable, though the way in which Werner has been charmed by the music resonates more with me. Through my amateur translation I also sense that Arnold’s review is surprisingly informal and that Werner was the better writer of the two (I also favored what I heard of Werner’s own music on YouTube).

For me, finding that piece of paper and reading the reviews felt like being transported back to the endlessly fascinating time that these records were made in, and I thought I’d share my experience with anyone who feels similarly nostalgic. I hope you enjoy!

Harry Arnold, Estrad (Bandstand), February 1958:

Harry Arnold

Of course I could try to make this into a pompous analysis of this record, but since it is said that honesty is best kept at a distance — all right, I do not have much profound to say about this record. Do not think that I condemn the whole thing because I absolutely do not; I’m just so damn precarious about it.

Perhaps the review will be more useful if I stick to the basics. The quartet consists of vibraphone, piano, bass, and drums, so it is tempting to draw parallels with the Modern Jazz Quartet. Here and there the style is similar, but the compositions are not in the “classical” spirit, as is usually the case with John Lewis and partners.

Side one is occupied by a work endowed “Take Three Parts Jazz”. It is a symphony in three movements with names “Route 4”, “Lyriste”, and “Father George”. In addition there is a song called “Meta-Waltz” on the same side.

On “Friday the Thirteenth”, which Thelonious Monk wrote, I think the whole thing suddenly begins to sound more natural, this may possibly be due to the fact that Monk has a truer sense of jazz when he composes than the other composers on the disc have?

I think pianist Mal Waldron stumbles too much at times, and the slow vibrato on the vibraphone affects my nerves in an unpleasant way. I think that the chord changes become one soporific grinding — but I appreciate the disc in a way, because I have a feeling Teddy Charles and the others have a bona fide interest in reinventing jazz without resorting to hysterical effects. It should also be noted that the solos are quite interesting at times.

Lars Werner, OJ (WOW), January 1958:

Lars Werner

In both name and composition, listeners will inevitably be tempted to compare this group with the Modern Jazz Quartet, which of course for a long time almost had a monopoly on sales in the vibraphone quartet market. However, the Prestige group’s music is of an entirely different character than MJQ’s: it is less stylized and lacks a certain coolness while spanning over a larger emotional register. There is certainly no equivalent in the Prestige Jazz Quartet to the personality that is John Lewis in MJQ, nor a soloist by Lewis’ standards, but Teddy Charles and Mal Waldron’s music proves capable of keeping the listener’s interest alive naturally, and the brilliant bassist Addison Farmer gives an intense and unfailing swing to everything.

To their credit, Charles and Waldron have been doing a lot of experimenting that sometimes has more in common with contemporary musical manifestations other than jazz. Here however, it seems that they have started from the rich ballad tradition found in jazz, and I feel they have found success with this approach.

Charles’ contribution, the tripartite “Take Three Parts Jazz”, contains much more tangible musical material than some of the earlier stuff he has done. The piece is highly successful, with tempo changes, solos, and themes emerging out of necessity, and the sense of a greater whole is never lacking.

Waldron’s two contributions, “Meta Waltz” and “Dear Elaine”, display an unconventional touch and much melodic finesse. Both works are well prepared, and fortunately they lack the sort of searching character that has so easily crept into many attempts to break jazz conventions.

Finally, Thelonious Monk’s four-beat composition “Friday the Thirteenth” provides an opportunity for longer solos from Charles, Waldron, and Farmer.

As a soloist, Charles is not as virtuosic as Milt Jackson — who is the only one he has to compare. Charles plays fewer notes but often gets an aphoristic clarity of melody, which makes him a musician I like to listen to.

Waldron seems to look for things other than melodic development as a soloist. He is more interested in piano percussion characteristics, and piano solos become more of a series of rhythmic figures, albeit rather monotonous at times.

The Prestige Jazz Quartet is still only a gramophone ensemble, and I am afraid that its music lacks the accessibility of MJQ. But this album should in the long run be of greater importance than, for example, MJQ’s last album, which gets a little stale after a while.

Vinyl Spotlight: Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims (Blue Note 1530) UA Mono Pressing

United Artists mono reissue circa 1972-1975
“A DIVISION OF UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS, INC.” on both labels

Personnel:

Jerry Lloyd, trumpet
Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone
Jutta Hipp, piano
Ahmed Abdul-Malik, bass
Ed Thigpen, drums

Recorded July 28, 1956 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Originally released February 1957

1	Just Blues
2	Violets for Your Furs
3	Down Home
4	Almost Like Being in Love
5	Wee-Dot
6	Too Close for Comfort

Selections:

“Just Blues” (Sims)

For Collectors

This LP didn’t pique my interest until I saw an original pressing on the wall at an esteemed Manhattan record shop last fall. Though I was unfamiliar with the music, I knew of the record’s ‘holy grail’ status. Needless to say, I was intrigued. At this point in my time collecting I felt confident handling such an expensive piece, and when I removed the vinyl from the sleeve it was beautiful — Lexington Ave. labels, flat edge, deep groove, all the trimmings. When I got home later that evening I gave it a listen on Spotify and quickly realized how fun and animated the music was. Though I had never spent anywhere near the asking price on a record before, the thought that I may never see the record again eventually captivated my mind, so I arranged an in-store audition.

I set out with cash in hand, ready to make what I believed to be a respectable offer. When I got to the store, I took a more careful look at the record before it played. Visually it was beautiful with only some light scuffing. When side 1 began, the music sounded loud and present and I liked what I heard. The second song, the ballad “Violets for Your Furs”, was quieter though, and revealed light yet consistent surface noise. The owner said the record had been cleaned, which was a bit disconcerting in consideration of the noise I was hearing. I began listening more carefully, and by the time the needle got to trumpeter Jerry Lloyd’s solo on “Down Home”, the last song on the first side, the deal was dead, as inner groove distortion was evident. I thanked the owner for his time and left the shop a (much) wealthier person.

At this point I knew I loved the music, so I picked up the Classic Records reissue. It sounded great, but I still wanted to see if there was something I was missing out on that could only be provided by a younger, fresher master tape. So I sought out the copy you see here, an early ‘70s United Artists copy (technically the second ever pressing of the album). Ultimately, the master tape sounded similar with both pressings and I decided to keep the UA.

(Note: The following two paragraphs were updated June 2024.) At this point it is clear that at least some of these UA mono LPs were exported for sale in Japan, as many copies can still be found with Japanese “OBI” stickers. The common cut corners with these records signal either promotional use or discounted/no-returns status. Additionally, although these early ’70s Blue Note reissues are some of the earliest to not be mastered by Rudy Van Gelder, Liberty Records had begun using other mastering engineers as early as 1966. But who mastered many of these United Artists reissues remains a mystery.

Some of these US reissues are not sourced from the original tapes. According to Blue Note archivist Michael Cuscuna, United Artists would have been the first parent label to demand that Blue Note’s original master tapes be duplicated (sometimes with Dolby noise reduction) in the event that the tape was beginning to flake. (This is why original copies of classic Blue Note albums with Van Gelder mastering are so valuable: there is no debating that they were made using first generation tapes shortly after the recording sessions.) But this myriad of possibilities doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on the quality of this particular finished product, the results of which can be heard in the needledrops above.

For Music Lovers

To stand out in the testosterone-overrun world of instrumental jazz, it certainly didn’t hurt that German-born pianist Jutta (pronounced “Yoo-ta”) Hipp was a woman. That’s probably what esteemed jazz critic Leonard Feather was thinking in 1954 when he began nurturing the undiscovered talent. After hearing a friend’s recording of her, Feather booked studio time in Germany for the 29-year-old redheaded bopper (New Faces – New Sounds from Germany, Blue Note 5056), then arranged for Hipp to come to New York City in November 1955 for a residency at the Hickory House on East 52nd Street. The six-month stretch that followed proved quite an eventful time for the pianist. She was recorded on location by Blue Note in April (Jutta Hipp at the Hickory House, BLP 1515/6), and amongst the plethora of world-renowned jazz musicians whose acquaintance she had the pleasure of making, Hipp was reunited with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, whom she had originally jammed with on the Continent a few years back when Sims was on tour with bandleader Stan Kenton.

Hipp woud eventually be asked to assemble a combo for a Blue Note session at the label’s holy house of sound, engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s home recording studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. Sims would be recruited along with drummer Ed Thigpen, the backbone of Hipp’s Hickory House trio. Trumpeter Jerry Lloyd came along with Sims and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik entered the equation as well. Overseen by Alfred Lion, a fellow German native, the session commenced in late July 1956 and produced the entirety of the LP in a single day.

The band warmed up with a pair of ballads: the Matt Dennis-Tom Adair composition “Violets for Your Furs” (first recorded by Frank Sinatra two years prior), and the standard “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)”. The former took what was perhaps a nervous Hipp four takes to get through, and while the time constraints of the LP format wouldn’t allow the latter on to the original release, it would surface for the first time 40 years later along with George Gershwin’s “’S Wonderful” on the 1996 Connoisseur Series compact disc.

Sims and Hipp rehearsing at Van Gelder Studio

Hours later, by the time seven songs were laid to tape, the session was all but complete when Sims would have suggested the band riff on an up-tempo twelve-bar progression of his choosing. The result was “Just Blues”, and the track proved to be so much fun that it would later be chosen as the album’s opener. (In a review for All About Jazz, critic Chris M. Slawecki quipped, “Sims contributed the opening “Just Blues”, although he apparently couldn’t be bothered to title it,” which provokes the comical image of Lion turning to Sims for the title after the take with Sims shrugging and humbly replying, “Just blues.”)

The album would eventually make it to store shelves seven months later in February 1957. But by this time Hipp had mysteriously disappeared from the scene, and without star power to drive album sales, the sides wouldn’t be repressed until the glory days of hard bop were long over, rendering the original LP a figment to the vast majority of the jazz record collecting populous.

On first listen, the music here may sound a bit old-fashioned when held up to other cutting edge jazz albums recorded in 1956, but the consistently fun vibe of Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims proves difficult to deny. Sims would assume the unofficial role of leader that day, bringing a playful, infectious energy to the studio, and Hipp rose to the occasion despite known confidence issues. Thigpen, who would go on to form one-third of the legendary Oscar Peterson Trio, provides a steady, driving rhythm throughout, putting the soloists in the zone with inspiring momentum on more upbeat tunes like “Just Blues”, Lloyd’s “Down Home” and the J.J. Johnson composition “Wee Dot”.

Drummer Ed Thigpen

The recording itself is one of Rudy Van Gelder’s finest. By 1956 the engineer had finally backed off the quirky artificial spring reverb that hinders many of his earliest recordings, allowing listeners to hear the natural ambience of the Hackensack living room in all its makeshift glory. Soft, warm cymbals also define Van Gelder’s sound during this period, giving the music a unique, almost cartoony character. For the finishing touch, Reid Miles provided some of his most iconic design: a colorful, modern jumble of rectangles primitively imitating the keys of a piano (the cover has proven so iconic it has found a home in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City).

Sadly, this was the last time Hipp would enter a recording studio. At some point the pianist became jaded by the music industry, retreating to Queens to work in a textile factory. She returned to her first creative passion, painting, and lived alone there until 2003 when she passed away due to terminal illness. There are only a few recordings of the German phenom to be heard as a result, and we should be grateful for this particular shining example of her talents.