Alex Henderson

Jack McDuff
 

“The Best of the Concord Years”
 
Soul-jazz and hard bop suffered a tremendous loss on January 23, 2001, when Brother Jack McDuff died of heart failure in his adopted home of Minneapolis at the age of 74. Organ lovers all over the world were saddened to learn of his death—McDuff was, after all, one of the Hammond B-3’s all-time heavyweights. At the same time, they could take comfort in knowing that he had lived a long and extremely productive life. The history of jazz is full of tragic figures who died young, but McDuff wasn’t one of them. He was prolific during his youth, and The Best of the Concord Years underscores the fact that Brother Jack maintained his high standards during his old age.

Spanning 1991-2000, this two-CD, 18-track set takes a look at the final chapter of McDuff’s long career: his years at Concord Jazz. McDuff started recording for Concord in 1991, and he was still signed to the California label at the time of his death. The Best of the Concord Years isn’t the last word on McDuff’s Concord period—he recorded eight albums for Concord as a leader or co-leader, and all of them are well worth obtaining if you’re a serious B-3 enthusiast. This double-CD does, however, offer a thoroughly rewarding overview of his Concord period and demonstrates that the older McDuff of the 1990s was no less exciting than the younger McDuff of the 1950s and 1960s.

To fully understand why Brother Jack was such an asset to Concord, one should know some things about the events that led up to his Concord years. Born in Champaign, Illinois on September 17, 1926, McDuff was still in his 20s when he started to make a name for himself in the Midwestern jazz scene of the 1950s. As a jazzman, McDuff’s first instrument wasn’t the organ—he started playing jazz on the acoustic bass before teaching himself to play both the piano and the organ in the mid-1950s.      

After that, it wasn’t long before the organ became McDuff’s primary instrument, and the man who can take the most credit for his interest in the Hammond B-3 is a seminal Philadelphian named Jimmy Smith. Although Smith wasn’t the first improviser to play jazz on the organ—pianist Fats Waller started playing the pipe organ as a secondary instrument in the 1920s--he pioneered a distinctively funky, blues-drenched, R&B-friendly style of hard bop organ that influenced countless musicians, including McDuff. Smith’s brand of hard bop came to be called soul-jazz because it was so darn soulful, and when McDuff started playing organ for tenor sax honker Willis “Gator” Jackson in the late 1950s, he was well on his way to being recognized as one of Smith’s most captivating disciples.

McDuff recorded Brother Jack, his first album as a leader, for Prestige Records in 1960, and his many Prestige releases of the 1960s made it clear that he had become a great organist in his own right. Throughout the 1960s, McDuff was the essence of soul-jazz and had no problem appealing to blues and R&B audiences as well as jazz audiences. If a fan of Marvin Gaye, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed or Wilson Pickett was in the mood for instrumental jazz, McDuff was the sort of improviser he/she would turn to. But by the mid-1970s, the popularity of organ combos had decreased considerably. Feeling he had to change with the times if he wanted to remain competitive, McDuff turned to electric keyboards and moved in a more fusion-oriented direction. However, organ combos regained their popularity in the late 1980s, which is when McDuff dusted off his B-3, signed with Muse Records and triumphantly returned to soul-jazz and hard bop. In 1991 and 1992, the Midwesterner continued in that vein when he recorded his first Concord album, Color Me Blue (CCD-4516)—and that was the beginning of the period that is examined on this two-CD anthology.

The list of musicians who join McDuff on The Best of the Concord Years reads like a who’s-who of soul-jazz; that includes tenor and alto saxophonist Red Holloway (who he frequently played with in the 1960s), guitarist Pat Martino and pianist Gene Harris as well as organist/trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco and guitarist/singer George Benson (who was a McDuff sideman in the 1960s). Many of the recordings on this two-CD set find McDuff overseeing the cohesive working group that he led in the 1990s—an outfit whose members included alto saxophonist Andrew Beals, tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon, drummer Rudy Petschauer and the versatile guitarist John Hart. McDuff had nothing but praise for the band; in a 1997 interview, a 70-year-old McDuff enthusiastically told this journalist: “These guys can do it all. John Hart can play outside, or he can play funky. I tell you, this is the best goddamn band in the world. Wherever we go to play, they’re fighting to get in. When I’m playing with these guys, I can’t wait to get to work. And that’s saying a lot, boy.”

Indeed it is. McDuff didn’t hand out praise lightly. As jovial, humorous and good-natured as he was, McDuff could be a very demanding employer. He expected a lot from his sidemen, and more often than not, he got it.

On The Best of the Concord Years, McDuff’s sidemen and guests can vary from one track to the next. But whoever McDuff is playing with, the thing that all of these performances have in common is their accessibility. McDuff was not the sort of jazzman who would go of his way to be abstract and ultra-cerebral; he wanted to be accessible, and like the Godfather of Soul James Brown, he loved to make it funky—which is exactly what the organist does on down home, grits-and-gravy offerings like “Blooze in G,” “Pettin’ the Cat” and “Pork Chops & Pasta.” All of these instrumentals are McDuff originals that illustrate his mastery of the 12-bar blues format.

McDuff firmly believed in the groove factor, which is alive and well on Eddie Harris’ “Cold Duck Time.” Recorded in 1998 for McDuff’s Bringin’ It Home album (CCD-4855), “Cold Duck Time” boasts an inspired McDuff/Benson reunion. These days, Benson is a superstar, but he had yet to become well known when McDuff hired him as a sideman in the early 1960s. After McDuff’s death, Benson asserted, “Jack McDuff set the tone for what I’ve become today,” and that’s no exaggeration--as a guitarist, Benson benefited greatly from the on-the-job training that McDuff gave him when he was starting out.

Benson wasn’t the only guitarist McDuff used on Bringin’ It Home. He also worked with John Hart and Mark Whitfield, one of the many hard bop-oriented “Young Lions” who emerged in the 1990s. Whitfield is featured on the groove-oriented jazz-blues offering “After Hours,” which gives listeners a rare chance to hear McDuff on acoustic piano—the other keyboard instrument that he learned to play back in the mid-1950s. As a pianist, McDuff inspires comparisons to Gene Harris as well as Ray Bryant and Bobby Timmons; he was as funky on the piano as he was on the organ.

“J & G Blues” is from Down Home Blues (CCD-4785), a 1996 session that McDuff co-led with the late pianist Gene Harris (who recorded for Concord extensively in the 1980s and 1990s and was 66 when he died in 2000). That track, like most of this double-CD, is an instrumental. McDuff didn’t employ singers very often, although The Best of the Concord Years does contain two rare examples of McDuff using female vocalists. One is Down Home Blues’ title track, which features Gene Harris’ daughter Niki Harris. Although she is primarily an R&B/pop singer and is known for backing pop star Madonna, Niki Harris’ gutsy, robust performance on “Down Home Blues” (a gem that was made famous by the late bluesman Z.Z. Hill) demonstrates that she is quite comfortable in a soul-jazz setting. The collection’s other vocal offering is the Joe Greene standard “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” which offers an earthy performance by singer Denise Perrier. Those who fancy an R&B-ish style of jazz singing à la Ernestine Anderson, Marlena Shaw or Philadelphia singer Denise King should have no problem getting into Perrier’s vocal.

One of the B-3 virtuosos who McDuff greatly influenced was Joey DeFrancesco, the son of Philly organist Papa John DeFrancesco. Born in 1971, Joey DeFrancesco grew up listening to McDuff—and Concord brought them together on more than one occasion. In 1993, DeFrancesco made a guest appearance on McDuff’s Write On, Capt’n  album (CCD-4568), playing trumpet (his second instrument) on three selections. “Killer Joe,” which finds DeFrancesco providing a muted trumpet solo à la Miles Davis, is from that album. Meanwhile, “Pork Chops & Pasta” (another jazz-blues groove) and a soulful version of the Jerome Kern standard “Yesterdays” are from McDuff and DeFrancesco’s two-organ encounter It’s About Time  (CCD-4705). “Rock Candy” (a tune that McDuff first recorded for Prestige in the early 1960s) is also on It’s About Time, but the live version of “Rock Candy” that appears on The Best of the Concord Years isn’t from that studio album—instead, it’s from the 2001 release Brotherly Love (CCD-4893) and finds the two organists joining forces at the 1996 Concord Jazz Festival.

Brotherly Love’s primary focus, however, isn’t live material, but rather, McDuff’s final studio session, which took place in March 2000 (only ten months before his death) and boasted Pat Martino on guitar. McDuff’s “Hot Barbecue” (an infectious boogaloo) and the Hoagy Carmichael standard “Georgia on My Mind” are both from that session, and McDuff’s lyrical version of the latter reminds us how appealing a ballad player he could be. Though McDuff loved to swing hard and get funky, “Georgia on My Mind” points to the fact that he also had a romantic side. And in soul-jazz, that went with the territory--smoky ballads, like down-home blues, have always been an important part of the soul-jazz/organ combo experience.

“From the Pulpit,” one of the highlights of Write On, Capt’n, is jazz-blues with a gospel influence. Growing up in the Midwest, McDuff was no stranger to the musical traditions of the African-American church; both of his parents were devout Protestants, and he grew up hearing the organ in a church setting. Even in the 1940s—before Jimmy Smith’s Hammond B-3 innovations—McDuff loved the sound of the organ and was well aware of what Fats Waller, Count Basie and others had done with it in jazz’ pre-bebop era. But his parents didn’t believe that the organ belonged in secular music—in their minds, it was strictly a gospel instrument. And that explains why McDuff’s first professional jazz gigs were on the upright bass. “When I was about 20,” McDuff told this journalist in 1997, “I had an organ. But my folks were religious, and they wouldn’t let me use it to play boogie woogie.”

One of the collection’s more unlikely offerings is an interpretation of Lalo Schifrin’s mysterious theme from the television spy thriller “Mission: Impossible,” which was recorded in 1996 and released on McDuff’s That’s the Way I Feel About It (CCD-4760) album the following year. Schifrin’s melody is hardly the first thing one would expect a jazz improviser to record, but in fact, the “Mission: Impossible” theme lends itself nicely to a jazz makeover. Besides, Schifrin is no stranger to jazz—before he made a fortune composing for films and television programs, the Argentinean immigrant was trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s pianist and musical director.

McDuff’s version of the “Mission: Impossible” theme is a perfect example of his willingness to embrace popular culture. While some jazz musicians have an elitist disdain for pop culture, McDuff was never an elitist—a tough bandleader with high standards, certainly, but not an elitist or a musical snob. He realized that during the Swing Era of the 1930s and early to mid-1940s, jazz was very much a part of popular culture--and he refused to believe that post-swing jazz could only appeal to intellectuals in Sweden (although he commanded a loyal following in the Scandinavian countries and other parts of Europe). Arguably, the soul-jazz that McDuff and other organists provided picked up where Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford and Lionel Hampton left of—it was to hard bop what those blues-drenched musicians were to swing.

Sadly, McDuff isn’t the only B-3 master the jazz world has lost in recent years—Richard “Groove” Holmes, Shirley Scott, Johnny “Hammond” Smith, Big John Patton and Charles Earland are among the other Jimmy Smith-influenced organists who died in the 1990s or early 2000s. But we can be thankful that those B-3 greats, like McDuff, were documented extensively when they were alive. We can also be thankful that McDuff had such a strong work ethic. George Benson knew what he was talking about when he asserted: “Jack was one of the toughest bandleaders there ever was. He insisted on a certain caliber of musicianship; he wanted excellence in his players.” And The Best of the Concord Years demonstrates that McDuff never lost his desire to excel.
 
—ALEX HENDERSON
November 2002
 
        Not to be confused with Poncho Sanchez’ trombonist, Alex  Henderson is a veteran music critic whose work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Pulse!, the L.A. Weekly, CD Review, HITS, All About Jazz and numerous other publications. Since 1996, he has written several thousand reviews for the All Music Guide’s website and series of reference books.

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