Should it be said again that this is some first rate jazz from one of the most underrated trumpeters of the time, or can we at last put this label to bed and just acknowledge Dorham as one of the finest trumpeters of his generation?
Acrobat ADDCD3568
Kenny Dorham Quintet: Kenny Dorham (tp) Jimmy Heath (ts,bar) Walter Bishop, Jr. (p) Percy Heath (b) Kenny Clarke (d)
Rec. New York, December 15, 1953
From the album “The Kenny Dorham Quintet” (Debut DLP-9) 1954
Afro/Cuban : Kenny Dorham Sextet : Kenny Dorham (tp) Hank Mobley (ts) Cecil Payne (bar) Horace Silver (p) Percy Heath (b) Art Blakey (d)
Hackensack, N.J., January 30, 1955
Kenny Dorham (tp) J.J. Johnson (tb) Hank Mobley (ts) Cecil Payne (bar) Horace Silver (p) Oscar Pettiford (b) Art Blakey (d) Carlos “Patato” Valdes (cga) Richie Goldberg (cowbell) Hackensack, N.J., March 29, 1955
From the album “Afro-Cuban” (Blue Note BLP1535) 1955
Kenny Dorham (tp) J.R. Monterose (ts) Dick Katz (p) Sam Jones (b) Arthur Edgehill (d)
New York, April 4, 1956
From the album “Kenny Dorham’s Jazz Prophets Vol 1” (ABC-Paramount ABC-122) 1956
Kenny Dorham (tp) J.R. Monterose (ts) Bobby Timmons (p) Sam Jones (b) Arthur Edgehill (d)
Live “Cafe Bohemia”, New York, May 31, 1956
From the album “Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia” Blue Note BLP1524
Being able to list having played and recorded with Charlie Parker on your CV was no guarantee of financial or professional success, as the career of Kenny Dorham attests. Acclaimed by critics, Dorham was often plagued by the term underrated and as such with the passing of time his name seems likely fall into the annals of history. However, the music Dorham left behind tells a different story as this timely compilation reminds us.
Bringing together the trumpeter’s first four albums as leader the music reveals an original voice on the instrument and a fine small group composer. His voice is nothing like his fellow trumpeters who also played with Bird, yet Dorham never reached the height of fame that Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis enjoyed but did contribute greatly to the bebop and hard bop jazz of the forties and fifties.
Never one for the pyrotechnics of Gillespie, Dorham instead fashioned a clear bell like tone on the trumpet that he then used to carve out melodic solos at any tempo that had a clearly defined logic and shape that was full of interest.
Dorham seemed to be able to assert his quiet assurance on all of these early sessions, and all are worthy additions to any collection. The earliest of these sessions finds the trumpeter the company of some the finest players on the scene and the trumpeter sounds at ease and totally in command of proceedings with superb performances on Monk’s ‘Ruby My Dear’ and ‘I Love You’ by Cole Porter’ but it is his own ‘An Oscar for Oscar’ that is the standout track. Brisk and brim-full of invention, Dorham’s solo is a gem.
The album Afro-Cuban was always going to make it difficult to shake off Gillespie’s influence, and it was perhaps it was at the suggestion of Blue Note that Dorham should not miss out on the craze for this type of rhythmically driven hard bop that the recording was made. Interestingly the resulting music did throw the emphasis on Dorham the composer as well as an instrumentalist. In doing so he makes a decent fist of it with a set of compositions that refuse to follow any pre-determined formula, and his writing from a frontline to trumpet, trombone, tenor and baritone saxophones is exemplorary.
Very much better is the exceptional Kenny Dorham’s Jazz Prophets Vol 1 recorded shortly after Dorham left Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers early in 1956. A quintet session featuring possibly Dorham’s most compatible saxophonist of the time in J.R. Montrose, another musician in danger of being tagged as “underrated” (just listen to the two horns exchanging phrases on ‘Blues Elegante’). The two musicians once again show their compatibility on the indispensable Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia captured by Blue Note records a little over a month later.
With the addition of Kenny Burrell on guitar and Bobby Timmons taking over on piano thi is arguably one of the finest groups Dorham ever led as evidenced on a fine ‘Round Midnight’ and ‘Autum in New York’. Also, let’s not forget the sterling originals penned by the trumpeter including a spritely ‘Hill’s Edge’ that produced lucid but deliciously contrasting solos from the leader and tenorist Montrose, and ‘Mexico City’ that is a model example of writing and arranging for the quintet with an interesting theme and chord sequence for the soloists.
Should it be said again that this is some first rate jazz from one of the most underrated trumpeters of the time, or can we at last put this label to bed and just acknowledge Dorham as one of the finest trumpeters of his generation?
