The topic of Mel Powell came up and I thought of these liner notes, written by British jazz critic Albert McCarthy (1920-1987) for a 1974 Vanguard album entitled Thigamagig (after one of Powell's compositions).
In several respects Mel Powell was a jazz equivalent of the youthful prodigies who from time to time astonish the classical world, making his debut as leader of a Dixieland sextet in 1935 when twelve years of age. He was only sixteen when he worked with various name leaders at the famous New York club Nick’s, then after a spell with Muggsy Spanier he joined Benny Goodman’s band in June 1941. At this time Goodman led one of his finest bands and, in Eddie Sauter, possessed one of the most creative big band arrangers of the swing era, but Powell soon made his mark and before he left for army duties with Glenn Miller’s AAF orchestra had attracted considerable attention with such scores as Jersey Bounce, A String Of Pearls and Mission To Moscow.
During 1945 Powell recorded in Paris both as a soloist and as a member of a small group drawn from the Miller AAF orchestra, Django Reinhardt being a guest on some of the latter performances. After his army discharge he worked for a while in Hollywood, then concentrated on studying composition at Yale. During 1953 and 1954 he recorded a number of LPs for the Vanguard label and worked in a New York radio studio and occasionally with Benny Goodman, but by now he was concentrating more and more on composing, studying for a period with Paul Hindemith. Apart from one engagement with Benny Goodman early in 1957 he has been inactive in jazz for over a decade and a half, and has been teaching composition at the Yale School Of Music and other colleges. In 1959 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition and in recent years has written numerous concert material which has been performed by symphony orchestras throughout the U.S.A.
The present LP is one of two trio dates that Powell recorded for Vanguard in 1954, the other substituting tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette for Ruby Braff. It was made at a time when Ruby Braff was making considerable impact on the jazz scene, both through the imaginative lyricism of his playing and the fact that he was stylistically a throwback to an earlier era, and arguably contains some of his finest recorded work. Drummer Bobby Donaldson, a Boston born musician, was thirty-one years of age at the time, his career having embraced various jobs with local bands, a period with service bands, and working with innumerable groups in the New York area. Donaldson, a highly competent and sensitive drummer, died at the age of forty-eight in July 1971.
Stylistically Mel Powell was something of a musical chameleon, on occasions giving what amounted to skilful impersonations of Art Tatum, Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson, but by the time the present record was made he had assimilated his various influences and a strongly romantic vein in his musical outlook was often predominant. The two numbers he wrote for the present recording - the haunting minor key title number and the wistful Bouguet ~ are both melodically and harmonically outstanding. Thigamagig has excellent solos from Powell and Braff, both of whom also take part in a chase sequence with Donaldson, and the lyrical nature of this performance sets the mood for much of the music produced on the date.
You're My Thrill is a number associated with the late Billie Holiday and this performance commences with an imaginative introduction from Powell who follows with a well conceived and thoughtful solo which highlights the strength of his left hand. Braff’s playing here is superb, his melodic variations being particularly striking, and he imparts to his solo an emotional climate that suggests he was well familiar with Billie Holiday’s recording. Button Up Your Overcoat is more extrovert - Braff’s introduction reflecting his admiration for the late Louis Armstrong, while Powell shows traces of the earlier influences of both Fats Waller and Earl Hines in the course of his solos. Don-Que-Dee, a mambo written by Bobby Donaldson, is a quite attractive theme, the drummer coming to the fore on this performance, with Powell and Braff taking a mainly subsidiary role.
Powell has written a number of attractive compositions over the years, though surprisingly enough other musicians seldom seem to play them, and Bouquet is one of the most appealing: It is an intelligently constructed piece and both Braff and Powell contribute thoughtful and well varied solos, in contrast to those on Ain’t She Sweet which, though excellent, are more straightforward. Take Me In Your Arms has particularly delicate and sensitive solo playing by Braff, while at one point in his initial solo Powell strongly reflects the influence of Teddy Wilson. The closing California, Here I Come is the only real up tempo performance of the date, Braff producing a number of his familiar runs and playing with great fluency, while Donaldson comes more to the fore than on any number other than his own Don-Que-Dee.
The U.S. jazz aficionado John Hammond was responsible for organising the session that produced the present album, as indeed he was for all the 1950s Vanguard LPs that played such a major part in creating a renewed interest in the music of the swing era jazzmen. Overall the musical worth of the records which he supervised is consistently good, though inevitably a few dates probably did not come out quite as well as he would have wished. The present LP must be considered as amongst the six finest of the whole Vanguard ‘mainstream’ series, and certainly Braff has seldom been heard in more consistently inventive form. Braff is today still very active as a musician and at the time of writing is once again recording fairly regularly, one recent album being in the form of a recreation of one of his Vanguard releases. As for Mel Powell, it seems unlikely that he will return to jazz at this late date, and on the evidence of his last recorded work — of which this album forms a part — it is a fact to be regretted.
ALBERT McCARTHY