Don Rendell - 1961 - Roarin'

Don Rendell

1961 

Roarin'

01. Bring Back The Burch 4:05

02. Manumission 6:50

03. Blue Monk 7:56

04. Jeannine 5:05

05. You Loomed Out Of Loch Ness 4:54

06. So What 6:03

07. The Haunt 5:50

Tenor Saxophone – Don Rendell

Recorded in London, England: June 17 and August 29, 1961.

Artist listed as "Don Rendell Quintet" on spine and "Don Rendell New Jazz Quintet" on back sleeve and label.

Alto Saxophone – Graham Bond

Bass – Tony Archer

Drums – Phil Kinorra

Tenor Saxophone – Don Rendell

Recorded in London, England: June 17 and August 29, 1961.

Artist listed as "Don Rendell Quintet" on spine and "Don Rendell New Jazz Quintet" on back sleeve and label.

“Roarin'” is by far the most far-reaching of Rendell’s early releases. In early 1961, he had put together a new Quintet and had started to work club dates. The band included Phil Kinorra and Tony Archer on drums and bass, both youngsters, but already with the experience of playing alongside Jackie McLean and Freddie Redd in the London production of the play The Connection.

Pianist John Burch was a long-time associate who provided a stability at the centre of the group. The wild card was the 23-year-old alto player Graham Bond, who is described as having a contrasting melodic approach to the saxophone rather than harmonic one of Don Rendell.

Later Bond moved to the organ and formed the Graham Bond Organisation, from which both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker emerged, the cream of British Rock. The band were signed to record for the Riverside subsidiary, Jazzland, by their European distributor, Interdisc. This meant they’d got a US release, a rare event for a UK combo.

The young American, Ed Michel, (who made his name in the late 60s and early 70s as Impulse Records’ in-house producer of Archie Shepp, Pharaoh Sanders, Alice Coltrane and Keith Jarrett sessions) was at the desk.

“Roarin'” is hard bop, seven tracks long; four of which are originals and three are covers. Thelonious Monk’s Blue Monk and Miles Davis’ So What, are deceptive pieces that require improvisational skill to navigate their beautiful tunes. Duke Pearson’s Jeanine was already on its way to becoming a jazz standard, having appeared in versions by Cannonball Adderley on Riverside and Donald Byrd on Blue Note.

The original tunes kick off with Bond’s Bring Back The Burch, an interesting rhythmic piece reminiscent of Bobby Timmons’ This Here. John Burch’s Manumission is a long piece which sees latinesque rhythms and some wild alto play from Bond and a commanding tenor solo from Rendell. Burch also wrote The Haunt, while Rendell’s composition You Loomed Out Of Loch Ness rounds things off with some stunning ensemble work from the band

The album received a favourable review in the US jazz bible Downbeat, and was one of the first steps towards a limited recognition of UK jazz in the US

Billed to "the New Don Rendell Quintet," this 1961 album was an important document of early-'60s British jazz, proving that U.K. jazz musicians could play well in the hard bop style that had been pioneered in the United States. It's not incredibly distinctive or innovative when measured against the best American music in the style, particularly since the group chose to make three of the seven tracks covers of famous compositions by three major U.S. jazzmen (Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk," Duke Pearson's "Jeannine," and Miles Davis' "So What"). However, the group does perform with respectable energy and swing, as well as effectively integrating decent original material. For rock fans, the record's most notable for Graham Bond's presence on alto sax; a couple of years or so after this session, Bond would form his own group, the other players including future Cream rhythm section members Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. He's not the dominant force on this LP, however, or even the only sax player, as leader Rendell handles the tenor sax. In addition, there's little specific similarity with Bond's later work, on which he'd usually sing and play organ on British blues-rock with a jazz influence, though you can hear some of the manic intensity for which Bond was known in his alto playing on "Manumission." After a long stretch of unavailability, the album was issued on CD in 2004, with the addition of historical liner notes.

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