Horace Parlan – Bags' Groove (recorded February 29, 1960)
The jazz pianist's debut album on Blue Note included this superb jam featuring double bassist Sam Jones and Al Harewood on drums, written by Milt Jackson.
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On February 29, 1960, jazz pianist Horace Parlan was at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey recording Movin' & Groovin', his debut LP for Blue Note Records.
Parlan had a distinctive, left-hand dominated playing style, a result of his right hand having been partially crippled by childhood polio. He played with saxophonist Sonny Stitt from 1952-57, and was a member of Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop for the next two years before beginning to record as a leader.
The album’s powerful opening cut “C Jam Blues” was co-written by Duke Ellington and his longtime clarinetist Barney Bigard, and transformed by Parlan and his trio into a hypnotic jam. The other members of this session’s lineup were Sam Jones on double bass, a member of Cannonball Adderley’s quintet at the time, and Al Harewood on drums, who would record five more albums with Parlan on Blue Note over the next two years.
Vibraphonist Milt Jackson, nicknamed “Bags,” originally wrote the stellar “Bags' Groove.” Since its first recording in 1952 it had already been become a standard, with versions released by Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and famously by the Miles Davis Quintet as the title track to their 1957 LP.
Other standouts were “Stella By Starlight,” a beautiful extended workout co-written by Ned Washington and Victor Young, and the swinging closing cut “It Could Happen To You.” The only track on the album written by Parlan was the laid back jam “Up in Cynthia's Room.” Like the rest of the LP, it was produced by Blue Note co-founder Alfred Lion and recorded and mastered by Rudy Van Gelder.
Sadly, with Parlan’s death almost exactly seven years ago, all three of the players on this recording have now joined the ancestors. Rest in Peace, Horace Parlan (January 19, 1931 – February 23, 2017), Samuel Jones (November 12, 1924 – December 15, 1981), and Al Harewood (June 3, 1923 – March 13, 2014).
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