[1] Have You Met Miss Jones?
Vincent Herring
SECRET LOVE
(Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers)
Chappell & Co. /ASCAP
[2] Skating In Central Park
(John Lewis)
MJQ Music /BMI
[3] Secret Love
(Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster)
Warner Bros. Music /ASCAP
[4] If You Never
(Ray Gilbert, Carlos Antonio
Jobim, Louis Oliveira)
Ipanema Music Corp. /ASCAP
[5] Autumn Leaves
(Joseph Kozma, John H. Mercer, Jacques Andre M. Prevert)
Enoch Et Ciel Morley Music Co. /ASCAP
[6] My Foolish Heart
(Ned Washington, Victor Young) Anne Rachel Music Corp. /ASCAP
[7] Solar (Miles Davis)
Warner/Tamerlane Music /BMI
[8] Chelsea Bridge (Billy Strayhorn)
Tempo Music Inc. /ASCAP
[9] And Then Again (Kenny Barron)
Wazuri Publishing /BMI
VINCENT HERRING: Alto saxophone
RENEE ROSNES: Piano
IRA COLEMAN: Bass
BILLY DRUMMOND: Drums
The first time I heard Vincent Herring play the alto saxophone was about seven years ago. I was walking down Upper Broadway on the kind of hot, humid, August night in New York City that chases even the brave back to their airconditioned apartments for respite. I was in what can only be described as a stupor, when I clearly heard a wailing eighth note line, taken at a breakneck tempo, cutting through the dank night like a sword. I was still at least fifty yards from the club that, un-air-conditioned, had its doors thrown wide open. Now awake, I rushed across the street, only to find a scene more closely resembling a page out of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road", than it did the cool response that then passed for hip appreciation. The young man on the stage was racing through Bud Powell's Webb City with an intensity and precision usually reserved for the hundred meter hurdles. The audience was no less involved. They were wildly urging him on, as stoned on the music as they were on the establishment's refreshments. When he finally finished, returning to the melody, the crowd, as if on cue, got up on their feet in one unison motion and erupted in a roar of appreciation. I've since seen similar scenes all over the world, and yes, there are reasons for this.
There is not a single alto saxophonist in the pantheon of jazz greats with a sound like Vincent Herring's. He has attained a completely unique voice in an art form that reveres individuality. In an era when innovation is sorely lacking, Mr. Herring has done what all the rest dream of. He has become, to use a term coined by Gil Evans, a "sound innovator".
It is not through sound alone that Vincent achieves originality. It is through an organic, seamless combination of unique timbre, harmonic individuality, and an affinity for, and command of blues and swing, the signature fundamentals of jazz, all pulled together by a consummate mastery of technique that enables him to execute ideas with a ferocity that is frightening. Ideas fire out of the bell of his horn with such razorsharp articulation that had he been born a few years earlier, his playing would have given new meaning to the term cutting sessions.
Taking note of this, practically every great jazz musician, both veterans and young lions alike, have hired Vincent either for recordings or like performances. Freddie Hubbard, Jack DeJohnette, Nat Adderley,
Horace Silver, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Roy Haynes, Wynton Marsalis, Donald Brown, Cedar Walton, Kenny Barron, Art Taylor, John Hicks, David Murray, John Stubblefield, Lionel Hampton, Carl Allen, Ron McClure and Larry Coryell are just a few of the artists that know that at the ripe old age of 26, an authentic jazz original has arrived.
Vincent Herring has come into his own. While the influences of Bird, Trane, and most notably Cannonball Adderley are still openly and proudly displayed, it is clearly invalid to say that Vincent sounds like his mentors. As when listening to all the great players before him, it only takes a few notes to make an accurate ID.
After two previous quintet and sextet outings, Vincent decided that the classic quartet in the easygoing atmosphere of familiar standards was the order of the day. Only this setting could allow for the joy and relaxed ease of musical statement and intercourse he achieves with the help of a stellar rhythm section comprised of Ira Coleman, the mainstay on bass, Billy Drummond on drums, who gets my vote for the classiest and most sensitive man behind the traps among a current crop lacking little
in talent. Renee Rosnes is, I believe, somewhat of a newcomer to Vincent's ken, having played with him on rare occasions. You'd never know it. She is his perfect foil, listening, always listening and answering, always with a perfect, subtle response.
The set is composed mostly of standards everyone knows. Have you met Miss Jones? has long been a favorite of mine," notes Vincent. This time out it is given a lilting Latin feel, yet Vince's unmistakable love of the blues permeates throughout. The rhythm section sets the stage with groove that's so infectious, Renee, too, can't help but feel the blues at the tune's subterranean core.
Skating in Central Park, an original by John Lewis, is so aptly titled it's uncanny. A waltz, it conjures up such bittersweet images of its title, that even folks who have never been to New York must easily fall prey to its reverie. Vincent opens up with a tender rendering of the melody and then takes off on a flight of fancy, soaring beyond the confines of the earthbound. Renee glides through the changes like the figure skater that makes all onlookers smile and nudge their partners to say "Oh look!" Oh listen!
The band's original rendition of Secret Love
(due greatly to Renee's tolling ostinato figure) makes it the recording's clear standout. After the melody it's swinging all the way home. Listen to the multi-layered quality of Vince's sound; it's like the sonic equivalent of viewing the richly textured grain of fine oak. Renee, like myself, finds the tolling figure irrepressible and utilizes similar motifs imaginatively in her second solo. That's right, Vincent and Renee solo twice. The joy they get from playing the tune is palpable; you can tell from the fade-out they had no intention of stopping.
Just when I thought I had heard all of Jobim's great melodies, the quartet surprises me with, If You Never. What I like most about this performance is that they manage to toe that thin line between respecting the composer's Bossa intentions and those of the jazz improviser. They do the latter without sacrificing the former. Kick back, get a tropical drink, and close your eyes. You're in Rio.
"You know a tune is great when you can play it and hear it countless times and it still manages to sound fresh and suggest or accommodate new possibilities." Vincent should know, playing Autumn Leaves regularly with the Nat Adderley Quintet.
He uses this popular standard to reveal his very personal harmonic approach. Vince studies and practices new harmonic material into the wee hours, only to walk away with a handful of voicings deemed suitable. Like a sculptor, he is constantly chipping away at the unnecessary and inapplicable in his work. This practice has culminated in a harmonic palate easily identifiable as his own, and Vince utilizes it to particularly good advantage to revitalize this perennial classic.
My Foolish Heart, one of the two ballads chosen for this date, is played in Vincent's characteristic rhapsodical manner, shifting naturally from the plaintive and caressing to passionate double time, resulting in a style distinct from most other jazz balladeers.
Miles Davis' Solar is given a straight-ahead no-nonsense treatment by the band. Note the dramatic tension both Vince and Renee build in their solos, resulting in ever mounting waves of provocation. The drum solos traded in the closing give the listener a better opportunity to hear just how tasteful and musical a musician Mr. Drummond is. Ira Coleman maintains the kind of flawless tempo that makes him one of the most popular sidemen in his field.
Billy Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge is further proof of Vincent's uniqueness as a crooner. The best part is that, in spite of his personal approach, the song never suffers. Instead it's lent greater intimacy, allowing the listener to feel a sense of possessiveness, the way lovers whisper "they're playing our song." Last but never least, Kenny Barron's And Then Again is a dark, straight-ahead noholds-barred blues that will make your hair stand on end. They alternate between the joyful feel of a class bebop blues to that of the apocalyptic type favored by Coltrane. The dramatic transitions kept this listener glued to the edge of his seat in hungry anticipation.
I defy you not to be charmed by this recording. I guarantee it will become one of your regulars. I guarantee that Vincent, if he already hasn't, will too. His career has been steadily snowballing towards stardom, and with this release, it's now one step closer to its destination.
-MITCHELL KORNBLATT
THANKS TO: Frank & Delores Herring, Nat & Ann Adderley, the Pettus Family, my wife Ann and my son James, the Kornblatt brothers, the Schelle family, Carl & Devida Allen, and all the other friends and family that have made my life a beautiful one.
Special Thanks to The Yanagisawa Saxophone Company & Mr. K. Sakurai.
PRODUCED BY BIG APPLE
PRODUCTIONS INC
Executive Producer; Vincent Herring & Carl Allen
Engineer: Jim Anderson
Assistant: John Sikat
Studio: Sound On Sound New York City
Saxophone Technician: Bill Singer
Renee Rosnes appears courtesy of Blue Note Records
Design by Kristen Stephen
Cover & Back Photo by Sing-Si Schwartz
