Customer Reviews

Branching Out

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In writing first time reviews of Original Jazz Classics discs that are sadly going out-of-print, I was surprised to discover that no one had written about this CD. "Branching Out" is cornetist Nat Adderley's first session for Riverside, and his first without brother Cannonball at his side. This September 1958 session features Johnny Griffin on tenor saxophone (playing on five of seven tracks, the other two are quartet only), and the rhythm trio known as The Three Sounds -- Gene Harris on piano, Andy Simpkins on bass and Bill Dowdy on drums -- who would go on to larger success with their top selling albums for Blue Note. Overall this is a solid date, as are all of Nat's OJC discs. Unfortunately, the majority of these titles are being deleted (only "Work Song" has been reissued in the Keepnews Collection thus far), so interested parties should "branch out" soon before this tree gets chopped down.

This album comes on like an eager puppy, with Nat's cheerful cornet and the slightly cheesy funkiness of the Three Sounds. Only tenor sax Rottweiler Johnny Griffin turns up the ferocity a little, but, alas, he doesn't play on every track. And then there's the, um, small matter of this album's desecratory treatment of Monk's "Well You Needn't". Nat decides to speed up and simplify the melody, losing an enormous amount of what makes this Monk tune harmonically interesting, and then sets the head to a Latin beat. He might have actually pulled this concoction off if the entire piece had stayed in Latin rhythm, but the musicians immediately takes the easy way out, shifting to standard jazz time for the soloing and thereby turning a Monk classic into a characterless vehicle for "blowing". With that, this one goes straight to the dog house.