Leo Wright - 1963 - Soul Talk

Leo Wright

1963

Soul Talk

01. State Trooper 2:38

02. Blue Leo 4:43

03. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child 4:29

04. Soul Talk 5:22

05. Poopsie's Minor 4:46

06. Skylark 5:20

07. Blues Fanfare 6:28

Leo Wright - alto saxophone, flute

Gloria Coleman - organ

Kenny Burrell - guitar

Frankie Dunlop - drums

Wright assembled a high quality outfit consisting of Frankie Dunlop – at the time Thelonious Monk’s (already longtime) associate – Kenny Burrell and Gloria Coleman. (then wife of tenor saxophonist George Coleman, who in 1963 was with Miles Davis.) Miss Coleman’s seductive, understated play is in keeping with her Hammond B3’s crisp sound.

Leo Wright’s flute play on Soul Talk reminds us of the flute chair he held in Dizzy Gillespie’s top bands from 1959 to 1963, a stint Wright not surprisingly is best known for.

Soul Talk was released on Atlantic subsidiary Vortex in 1970. It’s part of its 2000 series and the odd one out in a series of ‘out there’ albums from among others Joe Zawinul, Steve Marcus and Sonny Sharrock. Actually, its session date has been a question mark among cogniscenti for some time, yet it’s highly unlikely that it doesn’t stem from 1963. That year also saw Leo Wright joining Gloria Coleman, drummer Pola Roberts and guitarist Grant Green on the Impulse release Soul Sisters. In fact, that group played the East Coast and had a regular gig at Branker’s in upper Harlem, New York City. (Wright stepped in with his alto sax whenever Grant Green was unavailable)

Joe Goldberg’s liner notes conclude with the hope that Wright’s group would make another album. Unfortunately, they didn’t. At the end of 1963 Leo Wright migrated to Europe.

A rare soul jazz session from alto saxophonist Leo Wright – a player that we mostly know from his bossa work of the early 60s! The session's extremely noteworthy as being one of the few to feature female organist Gloria Coleman – a player with whom Wright worked on her classic 1963 date Soul Sisters, and who returns here in a very similar hard-wailing sax-and-organ mode! Wright's work on alto is incredibly deep – with a sharper bite than much of his other 60s sessions, and a gutsy down-n-dirty quality that makes the record feel like one of the best organ jazz albums at the time from Prestige. Coleman's approach to the Hammond is great too – freely skipping around with a liberated sense of rhythm, in a way that matches Wright's every twist and turn with ease – and throws a few of its own into the mix as well! The group's completed by Kenny Burrell on guitar (also sounding harder here than usual!) and Frankie Dunlop on drums.