•
Rating: "I remember the sessions well, I remember how the musicians wanted to sound, and I remember their reactions to the playbacks. Today, I feel strongly that I am their messenger."
This is what was written in 2007, on the occasion of the remastering of "Soul Junction" by Red Garland released exactly fifty years earlier, by the legendary sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder. The same Van Gelder, still alive and active today, in 2007 is now an elderly gentleman surrounded by his historic studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; but in 1957 he was a young man just over thirty, dedicated to recording Jazz records at his parents' house in Hackensack, also in New Jersey.
Van Gelder fondly remembers that recording, perhaps because it was a period of particular excitement both for him and the musicians who participated in the album's recording: Red Garland, leading his quintet featuring Donald Byrd on trumpet, George Joyner on double bass, and Art Taylor on drums, invites as a sideman none other than John Coltrane, himself like Garland, a veteran of the ongoing historical quintet of Miles Davis. Simultaneously, Van Gelder's own home-studio, on September 15, '57, exactly two months before the recording of "Soul Junction," had hosted the recording of Coltrane's "Blue Train." Red Garland, on the other hand, having temporarily stepped down as a member of the legendary "Rhythm Section" of Miles Davis, arrives at his third attempt as leader, and the result is "Soul Junction" released by Prestige. A very spiritual and metaphysical title, which also gives its name to the track opening the album and signed by Garland himself: compositionally, it's nothing extraordinary, being a canonical Blues, but conceptually and execution-wise, the piece has much to offer, thanks to Garland's southern roots, a native of Dallas, and thanks to the interpretations of Coltrane and Byrd, who manage to prevent a piece without great "developments" like this from eventually becoming indigestible due to its excessive length, reaching nearly sixteen minutes. However, the title track manages to set the pace for a pair of Dizzy Gillespie pieces, which form the backbone of the album: "Woody'N You" has the task of opening this pair; a piece much loved in youth by Red Garland and in which a hammering Coltrane unleashes a great nervous phrasing, a characteristic of his Hard Bop attitude.
But it's especially with "Birk's Works," the album's centerpiece, that things reach their peak: "Birk's Works" ("Birks" along with "John" is Gillespie's real name) presents itself with a catchy theme exposed in unison by a gleaming Byrd and Trane, previously introduced by Garland with a "standard" but finely crafted piano riff. If memory serves me right, Trane took part in the first recording of "Birk's Works" when he played in Gillespie's band. The task of breaking the "chain" falls to the album's only ballad, "I've Got it Bad" by Duke, a ground on which Red can showcase his refined and "sophisticated" touch, while Trane can affirm his status as a champion of aesthetic sound beauty and phrasing even in the field of ballads; a combination that will reach its peak a few years later on the historic album with Johnny Hartmann. The album's few tracks (five) close with "Hallelujah," an effervescent piece opened by a sparkling Byrd as if leading a final charge. In the end, there is a sensation of having listened to an excellent album, well blended in the selection and arrangement of the tracks, played excellently and thus an outstanding testimony as a leader of a Jazz piano legend like Red Garland, in this case (but not only in this case regarding collaborations between Garland as leader and Coltrane as sideman) supported by an absolute legend like John Coltrane.
Loading comments slowly
