Customer Reviews

Moodsville, Volume 1

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Lockjaw was such a dominating player that, on recordings at least, less is frequently more. This session belongs to Red Garland, which is a good thing because Red reminds us that Jaws was a complete player, not simply a high-pitched, screaming wall-banger who was virtually assured of victory in any cutting contest featuring tough tenors. On the present session Red's playing is synonymous with the over-used expression "laid-back," or "mellow," and Jaws falls under his spell, rediscovering the low registers of his horn and filling them out with the silky and seductive tones that flustered Old Blue Eyes the night Lockjaw threatened to upstage him on Gershwin's "I've Got a Crush on You" ("Sinatra at the Sands," 1966).

My interest in Jaws was reawakened by the recent RVG reissue of Eddie Davis with Shirley Scott on "Cookbook, Vol. 1." Then I picked up "Straight Ahead," a session on which Jaws as the sole horn is backed up by the impeccable Tommy Flanagan. It's a colossal mismatch, a gross miscalculation, making Jaws sound like a sonic bully, huffing and puffing, ranting and raving til the cows come home. Jaws is a "bad" player, and when he puts on his mean and evil face, there had better be some equally thunderous support underneath him. Shirley Scott's heavy, churchy Hammond B3 provides just that, as does Oscar Peterson on "Eddie Lockjaw Davis At Montreux, '77."

On "Moodsville, Vol. 1" Jaws does the unthinkable: he lays off the top tones, staying out of the high register completely and, as a result, reminding us that he really could play ballads. Red keeps all of the tempos way, way down (probably the slowest "Blue Room" on record) and, as usual, comes up with some delightful surprises (I doubt I'm the only one who's never heard of "I Heard You Cried Last Night."

"The Red Blues," at 3 minutes 5 seconds, is absolute perfection, from the Tatumesque tenths in the left hand to the patented Red Garland widely-spaced block chords of the solo chorus. It takes genius to play this simply and effectively, to get so much out of so little. At times I wish the lesson had made a more lasting impression on Lockjaw.

[Since playing this disc a couple of more times, I've become conscious of a certain "intonation unease." In some respects, it's fascinating, because they're not necessarily "out of tune." But Red's piano definitely has not been brought up to the 440 standard on all strings, though I'm suspicious that some of the problem stems from Sam Jones' bass. I've always loved his gritty tone and considered him peerless among all "walkers" (as did Cannonball and Oscar), but I've always questioned his ear (as did Oscar).]

fans of lockjaw davis should be warned : he only appears on 3 of the 8 tracks on this cd . i'm not a huge red garland fan , and am nuts about lockjaw , so this is sort of a disappointment for me . it's also a moodsville cd , so it's pretty similar in tone and tempo from start to finish ,VERY low key . that said , it's really not a bad album . and the 3 tracks with lock are just gorgeous and any fan of his will want to hear them .