Willis Jackson › Keep On A Blowin'

2 LPs on 1 CD: KEEP ON A BLOWIN' (1960)/THUNDERBIRD (1962).

Personnel: Willis Jackson (tenor saxophone); Jack McDuff, Freddie Roach (Hammond B-3 Organ); Bill Jennings (guitar); Milt Hinton, Wendell Marshall, Tommy Potter (bass); Alvin Johnson, Frank Shea (drums); Buck Clarke, Ray Barretto (congas).

Engineers include: Rudy Van Gelder.

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs and Hackensack, New Jersey and Music Makers Studio, New York, New York. KEEP ON A BLOWIN' originally released on Prestige (7172) in 1960; THUNDERBIRD originally released on Prestige (7232) in 1962. Includes liner notes by Dale Wright and LeRoi Jones.

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

Personnel: Willis "Gator" Jackson (tenor saxophone); Bill Jennings (guitar); Freddie Roach, Jack McDuff (organ); Frank Shea , Alvin Johnson (drums); Buck Clarke, Ray Barretto (congas).

Recording information: Nj (05/25/1959-02/26/1960).

In 1999, Fantasy reissued two of Willis Jackson's old Prestige LPs, Keep on a Blowin' (1959-60) and Thunderbird (1962), on this 78-minute CD for its Legends of Acid Jazz series. Spanning 1959-62, this reissue looks back on what was a very exciting period for the big-toned, breathy tenor man, who had moved away from the honking and screaming he had done in the late 1940s and early 1950s and had reinvented himself as a more mature provider of organ-combo soul-jazz. While Keep on a Blowin' (which features a young Jack McDuff on organ) is a straight-ahead collection of blues, ballads (including "How Deep Is the Ocean"), and standards, parts of Thunderbird (which employs Freddie Roach on the Hammond B-3) are more commercial and rock & roll-minded. But even on a remake of the surf rock ditty "California Sun," Jackson doesn't lose his jazzman's sense of improvisation. "The Man I Love" from Keep on a Blowin' is a real surprise -- Jackson begins the Gershwin standard as a lush ballad before unexpectedly switching to a fast tempo and approaching it as 200 mile-an-hour bop. This consistently rewarding CD is highly recommended. ~ Alex Henderson

Genre:

• Jazz