Moe Koffman - Museum Pieces

MOE KOFFMAN
Museum Pieces
1978
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from Janus JXS-7073

Preview clip:
Digs (Archaeology)


What's the direct connection to the previous post featuring Hank Crawford? Since Moe avoids the sax entirely, it's the fact Crawford and Koffman regular Doug Riley were past musical directors for Ray Charles; Hank for an extended stint at the start of the 60s and RIley for a short spurt at the end of the same decade. Otherwise, the albums were released within a year of each other and share something in musical sensibilities as well, a fact picked up on by Dusty Groove who mention it in their brief review:

A groovy album of moody electric funk tracks from Moe Koffman -- and probably one of his best records from the 70s! The groove is nice and rolling, with less of the break-oriented sound than you might expect, but still with some very nice mellow, almost CTI-ish moments, thanks to keyboards from Don Thompson.

Not much left unsaid about Moe or this roster of regulars in one of the many posts here on Soundological covering Koffman and Riley. However, out of Moe's oeuvre, it is by far and away the closest to the smooth jazzfunk sound epitomised by Creed Taylor's imprint. More importantly, it pretty much sidesteps the copious cheese slathered upon the albums book-ending this session (Jungle Man before, Things Are Looking Up after) and hits a sweeter spot where groove, technique and studio polish intersect.

A snapshot of many popular trends in jazz during the period, there are a couple adventurous post-bop tunes on hand ("Dinosaurus" & "Wildlife"), some proto-smooth jazz moments ("Pharoah's Dream"), orchestral string-backed slow blues ("Evolution Blues") and a couple outright funkified offerings in the form of Weather Report-style fusion with some drum breaks ("Rocks") and the Mizell-flavoured downtempo funk of "Digs."

Days Gone By (Egyptology)

Based on its use by Jill Scott, you may already be aware of the mellow "Days Gone By (Egyptology)" and though it's not the best track on the record, it's why sample-spotters often snatch this one up on sight. That bite alone is one of the main reasons copies of this album are seldom seen out in the wild, coupled with the fact this is probably Koffman's strongest effort in the latter part of his pop-fusion phase so folks were likely more inclined to keep it in their collections.

Jill Scott's Slowly, Surely & Marc Mac's Visioneers Remix

Featuring prominently on the track is Ed Bickert's crystal clear tone on the guitar. He displays his deft mastery of the instrument throughout the album and for many fans his playing here is a big reason to pick up this set. Though more well-known for his work on bass, Don Thompson's contributions on keyboards (mostly Rhodes) are mainly as an astute accompanist with few solos on the album outside of "Wildlife" and "Days Gone By." Speaking of Ed and Don, this album was released around the same time as their critically acclaimed live duo set, At The Garden Party.

Intro to "Rocks (Mineralogy)"

On "Rocks" it's pretty clear Riley's still crushing on Mwandishi and Head Hunters era Hancock but always with his own bluesy touch thanks to his B-3 background. However, he's all over the map stylistically on his own composition "Dinosaurus", a tune described as "a delightful romp through the harmonic overtone series" which highlights both his skills and his influences (especially Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson) but meanders a bit too much as a result of some kitchen-sinkism.

For the most part Moe keeps it melodic throughout, maintaining his mainstream-oriented style without taking the type of excursions in his solos witnessed on the kosmigroovish Solar Explorations nor straight-up displaying his bebop chops like when he was Live at George's. However, he has a few moments where he lets go a bit and soars high, especially on "Pharoah's Dream" and "Wildlife."

Sometimes a picture doesn't paint a 1000 words
Australian issue [RCA VPL14130]

All in all, an enjoyable album that saw a modicum of critical and chart success here in Canada upon its release (nominated for 2 Juno awards in 1978). Created as a conceptual piece to accompany exhibitions at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (pictured on the back cover), its main drawback is in replicating the sterile, hands-off environment of most museums to a fairly high degree.

As indicated by the cover art's roped-off skeleton, sarcophagus and caveman mannequin, the music is often dryly academic and tends to be aimed moreso at the head rather than the heart or hooves. However, as also hinted at on the cover, there's just enough howler monkey to keep things lively and nobody is placed on a pedestal so it stands as cohesive communal effort among some of Canada's A-list jazzbos of the late 70s.


Moe Koffman - Flute
Ed Bickert - Guitar
Marty Morell - Drums and Percusion
Rick Homme - Electric and Acoustic Bass
Don Thompson - Keyboard, Arco String Bass
Bob Mann - Rhythm Guitar on "Rocks," "Digs" & "Museum Piece" + solo on "Dinosaurus"
Doug Riley - Keyboard on "Rocks," + Clavinet & Piano on "Dinosaurus"


1 Museum Piece
2 Rocks (Mineralogy)
3 Digs (Archaeology)
4 Evolution Blues
5 Pharoah's Dream
6 Wildlife (Mammalogy)
7 Days Gone By (Egyptology)
8 Dinosaurus


Celebrate Cheeba's birthday today by tagging along with Soundological & Moe for a trip to the museum - free ticket in the comments!

Various Artists - The Guitar Players

VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Guitar Players
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MRL 410

Ernie Wilkins & His Orchestra - Thank You



Shad gets pretty desperate for product placement on this one, even more so than with some of the other compilations released at the tail-end of Mainstream's run. This one's culled haphazardly from previously available material (whereas Jazz and Booty featured session out-takes) with little regard to a genre-centred theme (whereas Yesterday=Bop, Get It Together=Funk & Soul, Billie Holiday Revisited=Billie Holiday). Running the gamut from blues to bossa to bop with bits of funk and rock for good measure, there's a distinct lack of continuity in the programming. Not only that, he's fudged some of the artists' names, giving performance credit to whomever the guitar player was on the track in hopes that their current fortunes would inculcate success at the cashier's counter.

Ernie Wilkins' cover of Sly Stone's "Thank You (Fallettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" from Hard Mother Blues is credited entirely to David Spinozza (and spelled incorrectly to boot), who was only one of four guitarists for that session. However, Spinozza had grown in stature since this set, appearing on a multitude of classic albums and was dating Yoko Ono at the time while her and John Lennon were separated. In other words, besides being a hot property in the studio and on many charting albums, his newsworthy name was also popping up in gossip rags.

In much the same spirit David T. Walker and Arthur Wright, two indisputable dominators of the six-string domain, are named as the artists for Afrique's "Dueling Guitars" from the monster funk album Soul Makossa. At least there's some truth-in-advertising on this one and a close call for Shad to make: go with the names of the highly-respected session strummers or with the faceless studio creation who provided the label with a Top 40 R&B album the year before. Since Walker, who was highly prolific at this point in his career, remains a legend and Afrique was eventually forgotten by all but the most fanatic funksters, he probably made the proper strategic decision in this case.

Shad also wears his disdain for Paul Jeffrey's debut set on his sleeve as discussed previously in the post for Watershed. However, it's hard to wag the finger too vigorously in his direction for using Jack Wilkin's name since his fiery performance on the album is not only a show-stealer, it was also the impetus for Shad to extend a recording offer to the young guitarist.

More sensibly, Shad credited Ted Nugent for the cover of Joe Williams' "Baby Please Don't Go" from his band's self-titled debut album The Amboy Dukes. While the Dukes were largely an outdated garage band clinging to past glories by this time, the Nooge's antics and knuckle-dragging guitar style was gathering steam and the Motor City Madman had yet to release his first album sans The Dukes. Another fine example of Shad's savvy marketing skills and crafty cash-in tactics.

Save for dropping Sonny Terry's name from the famous blues duo, the rest of the tracks are properly credited. In fact, Jim Raney is once again given the nod for "Move It," which originally appeared on his lovely album Two Jims and Zoot during Mainstream's first run in the 60s but was reissued under Zoot Sims' name as Otra Vez in the MRL series.

Ultimately, Shad simply slapped together an album with minimal musical cohesion to maintain maximum marketing impact. This doesn't preclude quality entirely and the Jay Berliner tracks - in addition to those of Afrique, Paul Jeffrey, Jim Raney and Ernie Wilkins - are highly recommended if you haven't already heard them on their respective releases. While actually a very good representative of the myriad flavours to be found in the MRL catalogue, it's much more likely to please all of the people some of the time than some of the people all of the time.

1 Afrique - Dueling Guitars [David T. Walker & Arthur Wright]
2 Amboy Dukes - Baby Please Don't Go [Ted Nugent]
3 Jay Berliner - Papa Was A Rolling Stone
4 Lightning Hopkins - Lightning's Blues
5 Jay Berliner - Getting The Message
6 Ernie Wilkins & His Orchestra - Thank You [David Spinozza]
7 Paul Jeffrey - Minor Scene [Jack Wilkins]
8 Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Man Ain't Nothing But A Fool
9 Jim Raney - Move It

Get your gitbox fix from Soundological HERE or HERE.

Paul Jeffrey - Watershed

PAUL JEFFREY
Watershed1973
256+ VBR mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MRL 390

Paul Henley Jeffrey is one of post-war jazz's brighter flames, a light who remains burning and is widely regarded as a prime participant in passing the torch to younger generations. Although he's better known for his stint as professor of Jazz Studies at Rutgers starting in 1977 then as Artist in Residence and Director of the Jazz Program at Duke University for 20 years until 2003, according to his entry in Feather & Gitler's Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz he also taught at Columbia University, Jersey State College and the University of Hartford in addition to hosting a show devoted to jazz on NYC's WFUV radio station during the 70s. As you see, the man was serious about bringing youth into the fold for 50-odd years and is still at it, continuing to tour and record at the age of 76.

By all accounts, even before he'd graduated from the music program at Ithaca College in '58, he was already another young buck with a sax for an axe working the late 50s R&B circuit as sideman with acts like Big Maybelle, Illinois Jacquet and BB King until settling in NYC in 1961. This move ultimately led to him blowing on the bandstands of Dizzy and Basie by the end of the decade. Although originally pegged as somewhat of another Bird disciple, a friendship with another saxophone colossus, Sonny Rollins, would open him up to further developing his own sound and soon he would find himself in the thick of it with Thelonious Monk and blowing for our man Mingus through the better part of the 70s.

1968 Sonny Rollins CBC Documentary -- 1968 with Dizzy "Things to Come"

Double click vids for full screen

Paul Jeffrey with Thelonious Monk Quartet

According to Jack Wilkins, although released in 1973 and bearing a copyright notice for 1972, Watershed was actually recorded in 1971 while PJ was a participating member of Monk's band (he would be the last sax player to work in his Quartet before it folded around '74). This rings true, not just because Jack is a stand-up guy who - like his guitar - don't lie, but also because Monk Jr. was a member of his dad's group around this period and he hits the skins for PJ on this hard-driving traditional bop session.

Jack's smoking performance on the album (he almost steals the show) prompted Shad to invite him to record his own LP, Windows, so chances are this watershed moment in Wilkins' life is pretty much indelibly etched in his memory. As Jack says:

"If it wasn't for my dear friend Paul, I never would have recorded that album. I had recorded his record called "Watershed" from a year earlier. After that the producer, Bob Shad, asked me to record my own record."

Getting inked for your first album is not exactly a forgettable event in one's life and an instant that most folk would remember down to the most minute detail. It obviously impressed Wilkins and in times such as those the psyche soaks up a lot of detail that can be consciously recalled later on. Considering Bobby's notoriously naff notation of details, I'll take Jack's recollection to be the more accurate retelling of events.

Paul visits Jack during the recording of Windows.

The traditional nature of this session was probably the main reason Shad shelved it for a couple years, seeing as his mission statement for the label was to highlight the new electronic sounds and focus on the now! sound of the times. Always on the cutting-edge of technological advances and with his finger forever on the pulse of the public, his philosophy was summed up in the April 29, 1970 issue of Billboard thusly:

Shad feels many of the younger players came out of the acid rock mould and brought into their jazz playing electronic accessories like echoplexes and echo delays. Shad's newest move to expand his jazz coverage is to develop a combination sound built on jazz, rock and blues.

When you contrast that statement with the following quote from the man himself printed a few months earlier in the June 19, 1971 issue under the headline Mainstream Shifts to Improvisational LP's, it becomes clear Jeffrey's straight-ahead session was likely much less "hip" (read "fusion") than Shad had bargained for:

"As an analogy, the word jazz is an old term. When people hear that word, nine times out of 10 they cringe. It almost connotes death. Personally, I would like to find a new term to use. A term that fits the time as well as the music."

Well, there's no dodging the term on this album. It's Jazz with a capital "J" followed by a squiggly exclamation mark with little jazzhands coming out the sides. That should come as no surprise since Jeffrey was a serious student, and soon to be professor, of jazz. His deep understanding of the form paired with sensibilities that were both intense (yet not brooding) and buoyant (but not bouncy) had already provided challenging compositions on his premiere release while his knack for writing open charts and keeping them tight had garnered him a degree of respect in musician circles.

Compound his challenging sound with its very nature as a traditional throwback played in a mainly acoustic setting and it's fairly easy to see why this piece would linger in Shad's library until MRL was sputtering its last breaths and he was desperately raiding his catalogue for "new" product to put on the shelves. As a result, the first of the three sessions PJ led for Mainstream was the second to be released, sandwiched between Family and Paul Jeffrey. The fact shameless hustler and savvy promoter Shad rarely mentioned or advertised Jeffrey's albums in print to the extent he did other members of his roster is partly responsible for their obscurity, and for him this one seemed an afterthought.

Ironically, a few years earlier PJ had recorded an album for Savoy (one of Shad's old stomping grounds as an A&R man) called Electrifying Sounds of The Paul Jeffrey Quintet, that was somewhat kinda more aligned to the Mainstream mission. On that debut, besides posing for what could well be the best ironic indie-hipster disco-synth-punk album cover ever, PJ does an Eddie Harris and runs his horn through a Gibson Maestro "not for amp, but for widening pitch range and producing an octave unison line on the single instrument" as the liner notes explain.

Speaking of liner notes, Bob Porter's essay for this release is pretty much spot-on, so rather than needlessly extend this post by reinventing his wheel with a play-by-play, click on the gatefold image at the top of the post or read it at your leisure once you've downloaded the file. This one will definitely please fans of Dizzy, Parker and bebop in general, and will prove entertaining for Wilkins afficianados since this is the first time he stepped into the studio to be waxed for posterity.
Paul Jeffrey - Sax
Thelonious Monk, Jr. - Drums
Richard Davis - Acoustic bass
Jack Wilkins - Electric Guitar


1 Minor Scene
2 Brand New Day
3 Love Letters
4 Moon Madness
5 Brand X
6 My Son
7 Geometric Blues
8 Serenity

Discography as leader

1968 Electrifying Sounds Of The Paul Jeffrey Quintet [Savoy MG 12192] at Fat Toro

1971 Watershed
[Mainstream MRL-390] at Soundological

1972 Family
[Mainstream MRL-376] at Arkadin's Ark

1974 Paul Jeffrey
[Mainstream MRL-406] at the shad shack

1994 Tribute To Trane[Duke University Jazz DUJ 94]

1996 Together In Monaco w/ Curtis Fuller
[Amosaya AM 2531]

2009 We See
[Imago] at israbox

Paul Jeffrey links:
MySpace page
Wiki entry
Imago page
Jazz Discography leader page


Experience your own watershed moment with Paul Jeffrey and Soundological HERE.

Sonny Red - Sonny Red

SONNY RED
Sonny Red
1971
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MRL 324

And Then Again



As a bit of a birthday gift for the shad shack, which celebrates its first anniversary today, we've saved the best for last. In fact, some folk even speculate this lesser-known set from vet Sonny Red may even be the best of entire MRL run. Whther they're right or wrong is strictly a matter of personal taste but you'd have a helluva time ruling it out of the running.

If you're unfamiliar with the name, you're not alone. Obviously we're not talkin' 'bout the French metal band nor the thoroughbred nor the Bonanno mob family capo Alphonse Indelicato nor the heavily tattooed rapper nor the country/blues harmonicat. That sentence alone illustrates the point made in more than a few biographical pieces on Sylvester Kyner: struggling to get noticed despite instrumental proficiency, compositional skills and the ability to enlist top-tier talent, his generic name didn't do much to help him stand out from the crowd. In this day and age, when "Sonny" and "sax" are mentioned in the same breath, one is more likely to immediately think of Rollins, Stitt, Criss or maybe even Fortune.

However, Kyner seems to have made a memorable impression on those with whom he worked, especially upon the wife of a fellow alto player from the NYC scene it would seem since Gloria Coleman composed a track called "Hey Sonny Red" for Soul Sisters, her debut on Impulse! records. Sonny had made his way out to the big apple about five years before this was cut and worked with a lot of the same folks. Wonder how her hubby George felt about that? BTW, Coleman also released a cookin' album for Mainstream, Swings and Sings Organ.

Hey Sonny Red


Musician and scholar Ivan Svanoe wrote the definitive piece on Red, so the minimal biographical info I could find on him would be a drop in the Bluesville: The Journey of Sonny Red bucket. The following is taken from the Mississippi Rag's coverage of Annual Review of Jazz Studies #13 published in 2003:

The longest essay is a thorough oral history of the modern alto sax player Sonny Redd (or Red), aka Sylvester Kyner (1932-81), Anders Svanoe's "Bluesville: The Journey of Sonny Red." Born in rural Mississippi in 1932, Redd grew up in Detroit and moved to New York City in 1957 to enter the burgeoning modern jazz scene there. He played with major musicians, recorded and was generally known as a capable and entertaining musician, but there was by then a glut of post-Parker alto players and Redd never established an identity with the jazz audience. Nevertheless, he persisted stubbornly in the music, becoming "a jazz survivor" in one commentator's words.

Svanoe's history is very thorough, with many interviews, photographs and other documents, 40 scores of compositions and solos (including scores to several flute quartets) and an annotated discography of Redd's work. The essay runs to 145 pages, virtually a whole monograph and is very well organized and readable. It is an interesting scrutiny of a workaday musician who was not a "jazz giant" or a publicity hound but who made a highly individualistic contribution to modern jazz.

Since the discography below was culled from the usual sources (AMG, Discogs, Jazz Discography Project, googling) I'm sure Mr. Svanoe's annotated discography of Sonny's performances is more thorough, particularly when it comes to his long career as a sideman. Of course, until you can source a copy of that print-only piece, there's always trusty ol' AMG to get the basics down.

AMG Bio
by Scott Yanow

Sonny Red was a good but not great altoist who was somewhat lost in the shuffle in the 1960s and '70s. He worked in Detroit with Barry Harris (1949-1952), in 1954 temporarily switched to tenor while with Frank Rosolino, and later that year joined Art Blakey briefly. In 1957, with his arrival in New York he gained some recognition, recording with Curtis Fuller and Paul Quinichette, in addition to having several dates as a leader (1958-1962) for Savoy, Blue Note, and particularly Jazzland. Despite some freelancing and recording with Clifford Jordan, Pony Poindexter, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, and Yusef Lateef among others in the 1960s, Red was in obscurity by the 1970s.

To illustrate just how obscure, one of the only reviews conjured up for this particular session (recorded at the East Coast Record Plant in the last week of June '71 and released the first week of September) was found in the April 1972 issue of Black World magazine:

The liner notes indicate that Sonny Red (Mainstream), a.k.a. Sylvester Kyner, is a "Detroiter who has been around for many years, but has been out of the limelight for too many of them," Yes, it would seem so. "Love Song," overdubs Sonny Red on both alto sax and flute, the result a lush, Pharoah Sanders-like quality accented beautifully by pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Herbie Lewis, and drummer Billy Higgins. "Mustang" should please the foot-tappers, and "A Time For Love" the romantic. In fact, the whole album is a sign: "Quiet. Serious men at work."

Sylvester "Sonny Red" Kyner - Alto Sax & Flute
Cedar Walton - Piano
Herbie Lewis - Bass, Viola
Billy Higgins - Drums


1 Love Song
2 Tears
3 Mustang
4 And Then Again
5 My Romance
6 A Time For Love
7 Rodan

Discography

1959 Out of the Blue (Blue Note 4032)
re-issued 1996 on their Connoisseur series
at Sic vos Non Vobis in contributions c/o grumpy

1959 Two Altos (w/ Art Pepper) (Regent 6069)
at u2n2

1960 Breezing (Jazzland JP-932)
in comments c/o grumpy

1961 A Story Tale (w/ Clifford Jordan) (JLP-940)
at Pathway To Unknown Worlds

1961 The Mode (Jazzland JP-959)

1962 Images (Jazzland JP-974)

1971 Sonny Red (Mainstream MRL 324)

The Mode & Images reissued as Red, Blue & Green
at Escuela de Jazz (lossless) & Blaxploitation Jive (mp3)

As sideman

1957 Tommy Flanagan & Curtis Fuller - Jazz .... It's Magic! (Savoy MG-6055) (also available on Lone Hill's Curtis Fuller Complete Savoy Sessions)
1957 Curtis Fuller - Curtis Fuller with Red Garland (New Jazz NJLP 8277) at Jazz Cartoon
1957 Paul Quinichette - On The Sunny Side (Prestige PRP-7103)
1957 Curtis Fuller - New Trombone (Prestige PRP-7107) at RFCCBH
1957 Frank Wess - Jazz Is Busting Out All Over (Savoy MG-12123) at barin99
1960 Various - Gretsch Drum Night at Birdland (Roulette SR-52049, Vogue 600107)
1961 Bill Hardman - Bill Hardman (Savoy MG-12170) reissued as Saying Something (Savoy SJL/K-1164)
1962 Pony Poindexter - Pony's Express (Epic BA-17035)
1964 Bobby Timmons - Live at the Connecticut Jazz Party (Chiaroscuro 2030, Early Bird 104)
1966 Kenny Dorham - The Shadow Of Your Smile (West Wind WW 2049) aka Last But Not Least 1966, Vol. 2 (Raretone FC 5022)
1966 Kenny Dorham - Live at the Half Note (WABC-FM broadcast Feb. 25) bootleg cover here
1966 Donald Byrd - Mustang (Blue Note BLP 4238) at Blaxploitation Jive
1967 Donald Byrd - Blackjack (Blue Note BLP 4259) at Blaxploitation Jive
1967 Donald Byrd - Slow Drag (Blue Note BST 84292) at Blaxploitation Jive
1967 Donald Byrd - The Creeper (Blue Note LT 1096) at Blaxploitation Jive
1968 Yusef Lateef - The Blue Yusef Lateef (Atlantic SD-1508) at OufAr KhAn
1972 John White - John White (Mainstream MRL 330) at Soundological
1974 Roy Brooks - Live At Town Hall (Baystate RVJ-6028) at private press
1978 Howard McGhee/Benny Bailey/Teddy Edwards - Home Run (Storyville 4082)


Soundological tames Sonny's red lion HERE and HERE.


BTW, someone coming to the site for their first time today will be the 50,000th unique visitor! Welcome and thanks to you and everyone else who has stopped by since we started in July 2009!

Pete Yellin - Dance of Allegra

PETE YELLIN
Dance Of Allegra
1972
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MRL 363

Bird and the Ouija Board (excerpt)



One of the best things about maintaining the shad shack is getting a chance to hear pieces from the MRL collection that otherwise may not have come up on my radar. One example of this are the superb efforts of Pete Yellin, Dance for Allegra from '72 and It's The Right Thing from '73. After hearing them, they both found their way near the top o' my grocery list and as luck would have it, I found the first a few weeks ago. As usual, the version available through Soundological is a bit better than 160k res dropped at the shack and includes the full scans of labels and artwork.

Not a lot to tell about this album which was named for his daughter Allegra, who was probably in primary school at the time. She's currently a children's music teacher music so her pop's (and grandaddy's) love of music and dance undoubtedly rubbed off on her during those idealistic years between the birth of the hippie dream and its death due to yuppie schemes. For a great little analysis of this window in time for music and spirituality, I highly recommend you check out ish's insightful exploration of the subject posted recently at Ilé Oxumaré.

This set was recorded at the East Coast Record Plant in NYC near the end of May 1972, at the same time Ernie Wilkins was working there with Alice Clark on her legendary album for Shad's imprint. With that type of creative atmosphere and loving inspiration, all while spring was in full swing, it's no surprise this is such a buoyant, hopeful album where the all-star ensemble stretches out its tendrils like green shoots reaching for the sun. After a two-decade break in recording as leader, Yellin enlisted some of these same players in efforts during later years, with close friend Eddie Henderson playing on the '99 version of Mellow Soul and Billy Hart skinning up on last year's How Long Has This Been Going On?

One of the highlights of the MRL catalogue and not to be missed.


Wikipedia bio

Yellin is the son of an NBC studio pianist. He turned down an athletic scholarship at the University of Denver to study at Juilliard under Joseph Allard (saxophone) and Harold Bennett (flute). He worked in the 1960s with Lionel Hampton, Buddy Rich, and Tito Puente, and worked with Joe Henderson's band from 1970 to 1973. Around this time he also played with Mario Bauza, Hampton again, Maynard Ferguson, Sam Jones, Charles Earland, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band. In 1974 he formed his own band, and played at the Newport Jazz Festival.

As a sideman, Yellin has worked with Bob Mintzer, Eddie Palmieri, George Benson, Machito, Chick Corea, and others. He founded the jazz program at Long Island University in 1984, acting as coordinator for the studio there until the end of the 1990s.

AMG Bio
by Ron Wynn

His father was a pianist and NBC staffer, and Pete Yellin has recorded as a leader and was also part of Joe Henderson's early '70s band. He's a solid, sometimes exuberant player with extensive range, and a decent flutist. Yellin studied sax with Joe Allard and flute with Harold Bennett. He earned his degree from Juilliard, and at one point entertained thoughts of basketball stardom. Yellin had an athletic scholarship to the University of Denver as freshman, but then turned professional as a musician.

He played with Lionel Hampton in the early '60s, then with Buddy Rich and Tito Puente. Yellin joined Joe Henderson's band in 1970, and remained until 1973. He formed his own band the next year, and played at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York. He returned to play with Puente in 1974. Yellen worked in the horn sections of Rich and Bob Mintzer during the '80s. He recorded for Mainstream, but the session is currently unavailable on CD.

Pete Yellin - Tenor Sax, Flute
Eddie Henderson - Trumpet, Flugel Horn
Kenny Barron - Electric Piano
Stanley Clarke - Bass
Billy Hart - Drums
Dom Um Romão - Percussion


1 Dance Of Allegra
2 Esculynn
3 Bird and the Ouija Board
4 Mebakush

Discography as leader

1972 Dance of Allegra (Mainstream)

1973 It's the Right Thing (Mainstream)
at the shad shack

1995 Mellow Soul
Buy from Pete

1995 European Connection: Live!
Buy from Pete

1996 It's You or No One
Buy from Pete

1999 Mellow Soul
Buy from Pete

2008 How Long Has This Been Going On?
Buy from Pete

Albums available directly from Yellin's website (with preview clips).

Soundological dances with Allegra HERE or HERE.