Pennies from Heaven
Jay Johnson Lyrics
We have lyrics for these tracks by Jay Johnson:
it's anybody's spring You think that money is everything And still, it's anybody's…
Lady Of The Moon See her dancing in the blue twilight In her robe of…
Star Child You know, your smile's like moonlight You know, your smile's…
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@LennyBarralere
Review 1/2
The year 1954 was clearly the turning point in J.J. Johnson's career. In June, he left the day job as a blueprint inspector that he had assumed in 1952 and returned to work as a full-time musician. Two months later, he recorded the first "Jay & Kai" session with fellow trombonist Kai Winding, a partnership that would continue for the following two years and bring both players to the peak of popularity in the jazz world.
Johnson and Winding had participated in a 1953 live recording with two other trombonists, Bennie Green and Willie Dennis, that originally appeared under the title Jazz Workshop on a pair of Debut 10" albums. The first of the more intimate two-trombone sequels was recorded for Savoy, and quickly spawned other Jay & Kai recordings on the RCA subsidiary "X", Prestige and Bethlehem, where the pair had a minor hit with their arrangement of "it's All Right With Me." In the same month as the second session on the present CD was recorded, Jay & Kai began an affiliation with Columbia that would find the pair recording material for five separate LP sin the space of a year.
The collected Jay & Kai recordings would make a fascinating boxed set, particularly given the different approaches each label took to documenting the group at a time when 78 singles, 10" albums and 12" albums were all being issued. Even in its most extended blowing performances on the "X" label, however, there was far more emphasis on clever arrangements with Jay & Kai than was heard on Johnson's Blue Note dates. That — plus Johnson's ongoing ambition to document his music minus additional trombones — probably explains why Blue Note did not jump on the Jay & Kai bandwagon.
Instead, producer Alfred Lion provided Johnson with two opportunities to continue recording as a stand-alone leader in the months leading up to his Columbia contract. Both of those sessions are included here, and find the trombonist in two distinct quintet settings. The first was convened on September 24, 1954, a month to the day after the initial Jay & Kai Savoy date. Rudy Van Gelder had replaced Doug Hawkins as Blue Note's primary engineer by this point, and had also become the first choice of Savoy and Prestige— hence this date (as well as its mate here and the Jay & Kai dates for the two other labels). was taped in the original Van Gelder Studios. It features bassist Charles Mingus, who had organized the four-trombone date for Debut in the previous year, and who had teamed with drummer Kenny Clarke on the first Jay & Kai sessions. Conga drummer Sabu Martinez, leader of his own Palo Congo session for Blue Note in 1957, added a Caribbean touch, which made the Jamaican-born Wynton Kelly (just returned to Dizzy Gillespie's combo after Army service) a particularly apt choice on piano.
Clarke introduces "Too Marvelous For Words," then Martinez adds a Latin tinge when the full group enters and a most effective groove ensues. The details and overall sense of development in Johnson's arrangement are impressive as his trombone playing. He introduces a scored break behind the first half of his second solo that is carried into the subsequent 16 bars of ensemble/Clarke exchanges as a kind of mini-shout chorus. There is also a lovely written coda.
Harmony and rhythm are also important structural elements on the up-tempo blues "Jay." Kelly opens in what would become a trademark ebullient vein with just Mingus and Clarke in support for three choruses; Johnson appears with an eight-bar transition passage that modulates to the basic theme with Martinez now aboard. Four bars of stop-time launch Johnson's smoking seven choruses; Kelly returns for three more, this time with congas included; and trombone functions like a third drum in the eight-bar exchanges before leading the full group through three final choruses, each in a different key.
Mingus is prominent on the introduction to_ "Old Devil Moon," where each part meshes into a medium tempo of great flexibility. Not just Clarke and Martinez but the entire rhythm section were on the same'. page through most of the date, and the effortlessness of the shifting support matches that of Johnson's lyrical solo. Kelly has a couple of opportunities to quickly flash his knowledge of Afro-Cuban piano.
"It's You Or No One" reminds us that Johnson was in that select circle (also including Bud Powell, Miles Davis and the Jazz Messengers) that defined which standards were ripe for widespread exploration by modern jazz musicians. In this case, a pop song others would come to favor at a faster pace is given a ballad reading more reflective of its origins. Johnson shows his strong feeling for melody, while Kelly's beautiful introduction and half-chorus solo are darker than usual, revealing a rarely-noted sign of Monk in his conception.
@LennyBarralere
Review 2/2
There is more sensitive trombone on "Time After Time," with Martinez once again laying out. Mingus, who is unmistakable in support, seems to resist the double time on the second chorus, creating a tension ' that hardly deters Johnson's lyrical inventions.
"Coffee Pot" is Johnson's line on "All God's Children Got Rhythm," already a favorite set of change among Blue Note artists (see Ike Quebec's "Suburban Eyes" by Thelonious Monk, Benny Harris's "(And I" by Bud Powell and Horace Silver's "Mayreh" by Art Blakey). Clarke again sets us the full quintet, Johnson takes his first solo chorus strolling on bass and drums only, and Kelly is more redolent of Powell than usual. The performance, like the others with Martinez, help make this session a key early example o' Latin jazz.
The June 1955 Johnson session produced the final 10" LP in Blue Note's 5000 series, and the leader's last without Kai Winding for the next 13 months. Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley and pianist Horace Silver had previously recorded with the trombonist for Blue Note in March, on Kenny Dorham' Afro-Cuban album, and were in the midst of establishing themselves as part of the original Jaz Messengers cooperative. Clarke is the drummer here, as he was on each of Johnson's three Blue Not-sessions (the first comprises The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volume One). Paul Chambers, who had been working with Jay & Kai during his first year in New York, would soon begin his historic tenure with Mile Davis. Three of the six pieces recorded produced alternate takes, which are heard after all six of the originally issued masters.
"Pennies From Heaven" receives another intriguing arrangement. Chambers begins playing the las half-chorus of melody, then Johnson's variation on the changes appears in a well-scored chorus. The trombone, muted and strolling, is incredibly fleet and agile, blowing phrases that would enter th-modern vernacular on the instrument. With Silver laying out, Clarke's era-defining beat is heard in particular relief. Mobley sounds like Sonny Rollins with added nonchalance, on a master take performance that is one of his early gems. The alternate was cut first and is excellent, but Mobley made the choice easy here.
The master take preceded the alternate on "Viscosity," and again both versions contain fine playing. The master features a particularly robust Johnson on open horn, a terrific Silver solo, and a more vibrant Clarke on the out chorus. Johnson's composition is an unusual 40-bar ABCAB form that also stretche the soloists harmonically.
Further evidence of Johnson's knack for telling details can be heard in his arrangement of the ballad "You're Mine You," including the scored horns behind the piano introduction, the tenor sa harmonizing on the final eight bars, and touches of bowed bass. Silver's brittle, sometimes caustic accompaniment sets a distinctive mood that Johnson picks up in a couple of asides during his forthrigh reading of the melody.
"'Daylie' Double" was named for Chicago deejay Daddy-o Daylie, who received a second tribute on Blue Note when Cannonball Adderley recorded his brother Nat's "One For Daddy-o" on Somethin' Else. The Johnson original, based on the changes of "Get Happy" with an altered bridge and pedal point at bars 25-28 of each chorus, is an example of making something new and challenging out of familiar material. The alternate, cut at the end of the session after the following two titles, finds Johnson's lip still strong, though his ideas are fresher on the master take.
"Groovin"' delivers the medium-tempo funk that Silver (with Mobley and his other Jazz Messengers partners) was popularizing at the time. It is Johnson's composition, with an early example of Chambers "in two" behind the theme, and conversational tenor and trombone on the bridge. Johnson strol is on his chorus and moves effortlessly over his horn, while Silver returns behind Mobley before taking his own sanctified half-chorus.
Clifford Brown and strings had recorded "Portrait Of Jennie" earlier in 1955. Johnson's version is taken ata bouncier tempo, with muted trombone giving a relaxed reading in a performance suitable for dancing. It completes the trombonist's final session for Blue Note as a leader, though lie would return with Silver and Chambers to record Sonny Rollins's second date for the label nearly two years later.
— Bob Blumenthal, 2001