This is the first volume of a well-prepared and well-annotated Wardell Gray Memorial. Included are four 1949 dates with Al Haig, Tommy Potter, Roy Haynes; four 1950 Detroit tracks with Phil Hill, Johnny Richardson, Art Mardigan; four 1953 sides made by Teddy Charles on the west coast with Frank Morgan, Sonny Clark, Dick Nivison, and Lawrence Marable. The firstrate notes are by Ira Gitler. There are full personnel and recording dates. Rudy Van Gelder has remastered the originals. Gray, at the very beginning greatly influenced by Lester Young, was later further molded by Bird. He had a hard, full tone, swung with ease, and his conception was intelligent and always musical. He had freshening feeling for ballads, and had unflagging strength on up-tempos. He was not one of the handful of great, influencing jazzmen but he was one of the big leaguers beyond any doubt, and these are sides worth remembering. [6]
In Memoriam
Drive is an essential characteristic of vital jazz creation, a life force that enables music to rise out of mediocrity into a startling new light … ‘that thing’ which gives pulsation, meaning and desire to amorphous musical material.
As with every other phenomena, drive is a two-sided coin. It can, in appropriate measure, compel a musician to come out of himself and produce ideas that have laid dormant, producing improvisation of great interest. Taken in its more advanced stages, drive engenders a compulsion for creation and individuality that even the most talented cannot attain with any degree of consistency. In any case, frustration is the portion allotted to the artist reaching beyond his sphere for the constant aura of early morning newness which is a rarity even with genius.
Bix and Bird were lost because of their demanding urge to climb a mountain with no foreseeable summit. These were men of genius. These were the leaders. If frustration assumed grand proportions for them, it is certainly of a more vigorous sort for men of lesser resource, who, though formidable and individual in their own right, never get out from under the shadows created by those they idolize. This could very easily have been the case in one recent, unfortunate death in jazz… that of tenorist Wardell Gray.
For Wardell, as for most other modern soloists, Lester Young and Charlie Parker (in that order) have been sources of inspiration and emulation. Early in Gray’s career, his admiration for Lester’s approach showed up in his own playing. As tenor soloist with the Earl Hines band (1943-5) he made his position clear for all who would listen. In 1945, upon joining Billy Eckstine’s band, contact was made with a select group of Bird followers. This band was monumental as a breeding ground for some of our most prominent modernists, and thus the second impact upon this promising musician.
It was on the West Coast, however, that Gray assumed nation-wide prominence on tenor. Through a series of momentous Gene Norman concerts (with Dexter Gordon), that caused much talk among musicians and fans alike, and a set of recordings with his second idol, Charlie Parker (Cheers, Stupendous, Relaxin’ At Camarillo, Carving The Bird, all on Dial Records), he was established as a tenor sound deserving of careful attention. During this period, Gray was still playing in the Prezian texture. (Vintage 1947)
Although his progression up the ladder reputation-wise allowed him to come to New York to play with the best (BG, Basie, Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro, Allen Eager, etc.), his style had by now assumed a feeling of conflict, and his playing oscillated between Prez and Bird. (Vintage 1948)
Though Wardell continued to play with the ever-present flexibility and fire to the end of his life, he never quite fulfilled the possibilities that could have been less confining, if his approach to stylization had been more definitive and direct and not split down the middle. This, which the omnipresence of Bird’s shadow did so much to prevent.
Wardell Gray’s last stop was in Las Vegas, and as with many people, that is where his luck ran out. For Wardell, the musician, the frustration and pressures were alleviated.
Prestige Records is putting together two albums of some of this musician’s finest work as a living memorial. It should be vital if just for one reason: Here was a man who always tried to be himself, and with more time might have made it.
