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The Transition Sessions (Audio CD),08 October, 2002
List price $26.98
Soulful Spots of Time / 5
Until recently, these three sessions were available only on Japanese reissues at 3-4 times the price. Thankfully, Capitol/Blue Note has seen fit to release all three as a reasonably-priced two-CD set. I remember the original LP's on the Transition label. Produced by a small-budget company in Boston's Harvard Square, they were issued in plain cardboard sleeves with all of the liner notes included in a booklet insert (I've got the LP's but the booklets have long since disappeared--as have the round labels, which must have been attached to the vinyl with LePage's school paste).The music is hardly groundbreaking, nor is it of the commercial hard bop/funk style frequently associated with these players, especially with Blakey and Silver. It's unpretentious, lyrical, tasteful, swinging, and soulful--as fine an example of a mainstream/modern pure blowing session as any from this era. The programming of Tiomkin's "Return to Paradise" (dig Watkins' time in synch with Kenny Burrell's guitar) was a happy inspiration, as were Byrd's ballad choices, especially "Everything Happens to Me." Some highlights: There's some irony in Byrd (then the personification of lyrical, straightahead playing if not the link between Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard) making these recordings in the shadows of Harvard University. Fifteen years later he would be recording commercial funk and disco but shortly thereafter would have a Ph.D. along with a professorial position at Howard University. Joe Gordon's trumpet serves as a nice foil to Byrd's on two memorable blues numbers, both demonstrating Gordon's more fiery and passionate, Clifford-inspired approach (admittedly, at the expense of some control). Tragically, he would die a few years later in a warehouse fire (apparently, his only shelter). Watkins anchors all three sessions with an authority that demonstrates why he was viewed by many as Paul Chambers' equal. (Catch his wonderful walking-bass solo on "Phinupi".) Tragically, he would die several years later on the road (but not before I had a chance to hear him live at Le Chat Qui Peche in Paris). Mobley, whose reputation grows with each passing year, is understated throughout but is as melodic and inventive as ever (did he ever make a bad recording?). Duke Jordan demonstrates why he was an underrated keeper of the flame even after his landmark recordings with Bird. In the 1970's I went to hear Mobley and Jordan at a session in Chicago. Hank was physically wasted and musically incoherent, making an early (forced) departure after his first number, but Duke compensated by turning in one of the strongest piano trio sets I've ever heard. Though issued now on the Blue Note label, the sessions were not recorded or mastered by Van Gelder. As a result, there's more "space" between the microphone and the musicians, which is not, in this listener's opinion, necessarily for the bad. Admittedly, I'm rating these discs five stars for personal reasons. But I can guarantee that if your musical criteria include unfettered melodic invention, a deep but unobtrusive rhythmic pulse, and the presence of "soul" as defined less by style than by spirit, you can't go wrong with this timeless music.
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