Brother Jack McDuff › Brother Jack

2 LPs on 1 CD: BROTHER JACK (1960)/GOODNIGHT, IT'S TIME TO GO (1961).

Digitally remastered by Joe Tarantino (1999, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).

BROTHER JACK:

Personnel: Jack McDuff (Hammond B-3 organ); Bill Jennings (guitar); Wendell Marshall (bass); Alvin Johnson (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on January 25, 1960. Includes liner notes by Ron Eyre.

GOODNIGHT, IT'S TIME TO GO

Personnel: Jack McDuff (Hammond B-3 organ); Harold Vick (tenor saxophone);

Grant Green (guitar); Joe Dukes (drums).

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on July 14, 1961. Includes liner notes by Sidney Falco.

Personnel: Jack McDuff (organ); Grant Green, Bill Jennings (guitar); Harold Vick (tenor saxophone); Alvin Johnson, Joe Dukes (drums).

Audio Remasterer: Joe Tarantino.

Liner Note Authors: Ron Eyre; Sidney Falco.

Recording information: Englewood Cliffs, NJ (01/25/1960-07/14/1961).

Photographer: Esmond Edwards.

In 1999, Fantasy reissued two of Jack McDuff's classic Prestige dates on a single 78-minute CD for its Legends of Acid Jazz series: Brother Jack (1960) and Goodnight, It's Time to Go (1961). The LP this CD was named after was the organist's first album as a leader and was recorded when he was still in Willis Jackson's employ, while Goodnight was recorded a year and a half later and finds McDuff unveiling a cohesive group that includes Harold Vick on tenor sax, Grant Green on guitar and Joe Dukes on drums. But the soul-jazz/hard bop albums aren't terribly different from one another, and both of them emphasize McDuff's strong points: down-home blues, romantic ballads, and uptempo burners. Accessibility is a high priority on both sessions -- at a time when jazz's avant-garde and post-bop artists were making jazz even more cerebral and uncommercial, McDuff and other B-3 icons provided accessible, groove-oriented music that didn't scare R&B and rock fans away. Critics might have dismissed McDuff's albums because they appealed to a lot of R&B lovers, but in fact, gritty numbers like "McDuff Speaking" and "Godiva Brown" are essentially a 1960s extension of what Lionel Hampton, Jimmie Lunceford, and Count Basie had done in the '30s and '40s. This CD is highly recommended. ~ Alex Henderson

Genre:

• Jazz