BOOKER ERVIN – Back From The Gig (Blue Note – BN-LA488-H2 / 2LP-1976)

Label: Blue Note – BN-LA488-H2

Series: The Blue Note Re-Issue Series –

Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: US / Released: 1976

Style: Hard Bop, Post Bop, Avant-Garde, Improvisation

A1 to B3 recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on February 15, 1963.

C1 to D2 recorded Rudy Van Gelder's, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on June 24, 1968.

Design [Album] – Bob Cato

Producer [Original Sessions] – Alfred Lion

Producer [Produced For Released By], Liner Notes – Michael Cuscuna

Supervised By [Project Director Blue Note Jazz Re-Issue Series] – Charlie Lourie

Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-1- UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-2- UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 3 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-3- UA

Matrix / Runout (Side 4 Runout etched): BN-LA 488-4- UA

side 1

A1 - Home In Africa ................................................................................................. 8:45

A2 - A Tune For Richard ......................................................................................... 6:05

A3 - Back From The Gig ......................................................................................... 5:50

side 2

B1 - Dexi ................................................................................................................. 5:45

B2 - Kucheza Blues ................................................................................................. 5:35

B3 - Happy Frame Of Mind ..................................................................................... 6:10

Personnel:

Horace Parlan – piano

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

Johnny Coles – trumpet

Grant Green – guitar

Butch Warren – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

side 3

C1 - Gichi ................................................................................................................ 7:25

C2 - Den Tex ........................................................................................................... 7:32

C3 - In A Capricornian Way .................................................................................... 5:47

side 4

D1 - Lynn's Tune ..................................................................................................... 6:10

D2 - 204 ................................................................................................................. 10:15

Personnel:

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

Woody Shaw – trumpet

Kenny Barron – piano

Jan Arnet – bass

Billy Higgins – drums, percussion

"Back from the Gig" is a double LP by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1963 and 1968 but not released on the Blue Note label until 1976.

The earlier session was later released in 1988 as originally intended under Horace Parlan's name as "Happy Frame of Mind" and the later session was finally released in 2005 as "Tex Book Tenor".

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

When the session that comprised the Happy Frame of Mind record was released as a Booker Ervin album, it was titled Back From the Gig. Horace Parlan, however, was the leader for the session, and the album was originally scheduled to be released in the mid-'60s by Blue Note as Happy Frame of Mind. After remaining unreleased for over a decade, it was issued as Back From the Gig, but once the CD revolution struck in the '80s, the music was reissued as it originally was intended -- that is, the Happy Frame of Mind album. Happy Frame of Mind/Back From the Gig finds Horace Parlan breaking away from the soul-inflected hard bop that had become his trademark, moving his music into more adventurous, post-bop territory. Aided by a first-rate quintet -- trumpeter Johnny Coles, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Butch Warren, drummer Billy Higgins -- Parlan produces a provocative set that is grounded in soul and blues but stretches out into challenging improvisations. None of the musicians completely embrace the avant-garde, but there are shifting tonal textures and unpredictable turns in the solos which have been previously unheard in Parlan's music. Perhaps that's the reason the session sat unissued in Blue Note's vaults until 1976, when it was released as part of a double-record Booker Ervin set, but the fact of the matter is, it's one of Parlan's most successful efforts, finding the perfect middle ground between accessible, entertaining jazz and more adventurous music.

(Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

Tex Book Tenor was recorded in 1968 as a follow-up to Booker Ervin's debut date for Blue Note, The In Between, which was released in January of the same year. (Ervin had made two records for Pacific Jazz, which is now owned, like Blue Note, by EMI.) The album remained unreleased until 1976, when it was issued with an also unreleased Horace Parlan date on a double LP called Back from the Gig. The lineup is stellar and includes Billy Higgins, Woody Shaw, Kenny Barron, and bassist Jan Arnet from Czechoslovakia. Barron and Ervin had worked together before, and Arnet had worked with Ervin three years earlier as a touring partner in Germany. The music here includes three Ervin originals, Barron's wonderful "Gichi," and Shaw's "In a Capricornian Way." The Afro-Latin-influenced grooves of "Gichi" display Ervin playing his solo in prime snake-charmer mode. His own "Den Tex" is classic hard bop with Barron and Ervin going head to head throughout. "Lynn's Tune" is a beautiful midtempo ballad with wonderful work by Arnet and a loping solo by Shaw. The closer is "204," a steaming hard bop tune with a killer head featuring the two horns just pushing the tempo before Ervin goes off the map into his solo. Barron's playing is totally inspired, pushing huge chords at both players as they dig into the changes and come out breathing fire. This is a wonderful addition not only to the Blue Note catalog, but to Ervin's own shelf as well, and should be picked up by anyone interested in him as a bandleader and composer.

(AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek)

If you find it, buy this album!

BOOKER ERVIN – The Freedom Book (Prestige – PRST 7295 / LP-1964)

Label: Prestige – PR 7295, Prestige – PRST 7295

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: US / Released: 1964

Style: Hard Bop

Recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ; December 3, 1963.

Design, Photography By – Don Schlitten

Liner Notes [Jan. 1964] – David A. Himmelstein

Producer By – Don Schlitten

Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder

Matrix / Runout (Side 1 etched): PRST.7295.A

Matrix / Runout (Side 2 etched): PRST.7295.B

side 1

A1 - A Lunar Tune ..................................................................................................... 7:50

A2 - Cry Me Not ........................................................................................................ 4:54

A3 - Grant’s Stand ..................................................................................................... 8:06

side 2

B1 - A Day To Mourn ................................................................................................. 9:35

B2 - Al’s In ................................................................................................................. 9:58

Personnel:

Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone

Jaki Byard – piano

Richard Davis – bass

Al Dawson – drums, percussion

The first of four thematically linked albums, tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin's The Freedom Book is an overlooked classic. The Song Book, The Blues Book and The Space Book were all subsequently recorded in 1964 for Prestige, but this seminal 1963 recording is a masterpiece of unconventional, advanced hard bop.

Less free than the title suggests, the album remains challenging and utterly contemporary. While not as willfully avant-garde as his contemporaries Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, Ervin (best known as Charles Mingus' primary tenor saxophonist from 1956-1962) traveled the same subtle inside-outside territory as Jackie McLean and Sam Rivers. Equally capable of rich lyricism and electrifying tension, Ervin's distinctively plangent tone undulates with dramatic brio. His pithy timbre and slippery, unpredictable phrasing offers a welcome alternative to the Coltrane and Rollins imitators of the time.

Ervin is joined by visionary pianist Jaki Byard (a fellow veteran of the classic Mingus bands), a musician beyond category. Byard was post-modern before such a term even existed; his style encompasses everything from stride to free jazz.

The rhythm section is rounded out by imaginative bassist Richard Davis and the superlative drummer Alan Dawson (Tony Williams' future teacher). Davis' unique phrasing is coupled with an unconventional melodic sensibility. Dawson's fractured rhythmic attack provides an edgy undercurrent, insinuating time without overstating it. His endlessly modulating ebb and flow complements Davis' ability to stretch the time while maintaining the pulse perfectly.

Rarely has a rhythm section been so in tune with one another. On "Grant's Stand" Byard stretches a wildly oscillating statement into a series of descending arpeggios that Dawson accents as the two plummet, trading phrases before Davis enters, transposing their statements. For a line-up that never officially played out live, this studio group reveals a remarkable level of interaction and interplay, more than most veteran touring ensembles.

The album is dominated by a trio of scorching up-tempo cookers, with "A Lunar Tune" churning out irrepressible locomotive energy. Randy Weston's tender "Cry Me Not" and Ervin's somber dedication to the late President Kennedy, "A Day To Mourn," provide temporary respite.

Re-convening ten months later for the even more exploratory The Space Book (Prestige, 1964), this quartet played at an almost telepathic level. Timeless in its appeal, this edition of The Freedom Book belongs in the album collection of any serious jazz fan.

(Review By Troy Collins, AAJ)

If you find it, buy this album!