Mickey Tucker - Mister Mysterious

Mickey Tucker - Mister Mysterious
Muse 5174, 1978

01 Plagio
02 A Prayer
03 Mr. Mysterious
04 Taurus Lullaby
05 Cecilitis
06 Basic Elements

Mickey Tucker piano, Frank Foster tenor & soprano saxes and flute, Cecil Bridgewater trumpet, Pepper Adams baritone sax, Cecil McBee bass, Eddie Gladden drums, Ray Mantilla percussion, Azeeden Weston congas

"Nothing mysterious here -- but a great little record that stands as one of Mickey Tucker's few bold statements of the 70s! The set's a soaring spiritual soul jazz affair -- featuring Mickey at the helm on acoustic piano, plus Frank Foster on reeds, Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet, Cecil McBee on bass, and Eddie Gladden on drums. (and Pepper Adams on baritone!) Tracks have a dancing joyful feel that's right up there with the best 70s soul jazz on Muse -- like work by The Visitors, or Woody Shaw -- and the numbers are all originals by Tucker, and show him to be as great a writer as he was a player, especially in these larger group settings!" amazon

I share that enthusiasm, a really terrific album! Frank Foster is just lovely in a role where you might expect to see a Carlos Garnett or Carter Jefferson. Cecil B and Pepper have strong contributions and with a foundation like Gladden and McBee the music really sails along. Another one for that 70's spiritual soul jazz category and a surprise heavyweight (maybe cruiserweight).

I got a sealed copy and as you can hear it is flawless --- at least until three minutes into the final track when I heard an horrible POP and the needle clearly skipped a chuck of Pepper's solo. HORRORS! I quickly stopped the rip and pulled the record off the turntable---it still looked pristine, not a mark on it -- I cleaned it with the D4 anyway - no change, put a dime on it - no change - I watched carefully and there was no actual skip -- the flaw was in the mastering of the record itself -- CRAP!! I then remembered that I had an mp3 320 copy that seemed to sourced from a cd so I loaded it next to my copy in Audacity and started trying to match them up to see what I could discover - turned out a BIG chuck of that solo was missing but the other version was fine - I converted the one song to wave, cut out the first part of the solo and pasted it into my rip---I got it right on the second try and it is imperceptible! -- now for some reason my final version is still a few seconds shorter but it sounds fine and complete and is sonically superior to the cd sourced one.

Willis Jackson - Headed And Gutted (1974) [vinyl>flac]

Willis "Gator" Jackson's series of albums for Muse during the 1970s helped keep alive the soulful, tough tenor tradition of Illinois Jacquet, Gene Ammons, and (later on) Houston Person. For this particular set, the participation of guitarist Pat Martino made the date more notable than it might have been. With Mickey Tucker on keyboards, electric bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Freddie Waits, and Richard Landrum and Sonny Morgan on percussion, Jackson still sounds very much in his prime, particularly on the exciting "Gator Whale." The other selections tend to emphasize ballads "My One and Only Love" and funky jazz "The Way We Were". ~ Scott Yanow, AMG.

Headed And Gutted is basically a one-tracker. That comes in the form of the title track that is a real nice, mid-tempo funky Jazz piece. It has a driving rhythm and Jackson’s soloing over the top. The rest of the album is more straight-ahead Jazz splitting between the slow and mellow Blue Velvet and The Way We Were, and the more upbeat Miss Ann and Gator Whale. ~ Soulstrut.com.

Muse Records, MR 5048, 1974

Recorded 16^th May, 1974

Musicians:

Willis Jackson - Tenor Saxophone

Mickey Tucker - Piano, Electric Piano, Organ

Pat Martino - Guitar

Bob Cranshaw - Bass

Freddie Waits - Drums

Sonny Morgan - Percussion

Richard Landrum - Congas

Tracks:

A1. Headed And Gutted {Sonny Phillips} (5:21)

A2. Blue Velvet {Bernie Wayne, Lee Morris} (8:16)

A3. Miss Ann [Willis' Wife] {Willis Jackson} (6:28)

B1. The Way We Were {Marvin Hamlisch} (6:49)

B2. Gator Whale {Sonny Phillips} (6:06)

B3. My One And Only Love {Guy Wood, Robert Mellin} (5:44)

Credits:

Producer, Design, Photo - Don Schlitten

Recording Engineer - Paul Goodman [RCA]

Liner Notes - Ralph Berton

Charles McPherson - New Horizons (New LP rip/FLAC)

There have been major upgrades to my ripping system, this is a FAR superior rip to my previous attempts. The dynamic range, soundstage and realism are off the charts.

"If you're a hardcore be-bopper, this probably won't suit your fancy quite as well as Live In Tokyo, but if you're a child of that 70s period of Jazz, this is about as good as it gets. Tucker is in top form as a sideman (his strongest role, IMHO) and McBee is unconscious, as usual. This is a great period for McBee, and while maybe a step past prime for Freddie Waits, he's still burning and this is a very solid, straight ahead Jazz date during a period when the Rhodes and crossover were favored. McPherson is sort of the forgotten soldier -- no one seems to discuss him much and he's always been under recorded. There are no anthems here, and I won't use the word 'clinic' to describe this music because there is nothing clinical about it (a fault much of the 70s/80s Jazz seems to suffer from). This is honest, productive, interesting and enjoyable Jazz, the way it was intended to be." Lost Soul blogspot

  I couldn't see how I was going to do anything but parrot that review so thanks to Lost Soul.

Charles McPherson - New Horizons
Xanadu 149, 1977

1. Promise
2. I'll Never Stop Loving You
3. Night Eyes
4. Horizons
5. Samba D'Orfeo
6. Dee Blues

Charles McPherson - alto sax
Mickey Tucker - piano
Cecil McBee - bass
Freddie Waits - drums

Recorded September 28, 1977

Mickey Tucker - Sojourn

When we made the move to our new home I tried an experiment in creating false history by backdating posts to before we actually came here. I thought it might provide some continuity....yeah, okay THAT didn't work out so well so I am saving these one by one by bringing them forward.

This comes once again from Wid and I'm putting it both here and at Kublah's Crib mostly because I don't think anyone will notice the upgraded links over there since they don't expect any new postings anymore. We had an mp3 link previously that is now replaced with a FLAC lp rip!

Mickey Tucker - Sojourn
Xanadu 143, 1977

1: Fast Train To Zurich
2: Norwegian Nights - Norwegian Days
3: Tunisian Festival
4: The Silent Mind of Fraulen Stein
5: French Fables
6: Dusseldorf Dance

Bill Hardman tp
Junior Cook ts
Ronnie Cuber bs
Mickey Tucker p
Cecil McBee b
Eddie Gladden d

RCA Studios, NYC, March 28, 1977
Engineer: Paul Goodman

Whoever said it is under-rehearsed never listened to that album. All tracks were composed and arranged by Tucker and are his impressions of a European tour with the Jazz Messengers - his quotes in Bob Blumenthal's notes are much fun to read, and the music is full of Tucker's own take on humour in music - if I had but one album to pick as Tucker's most impressive, I'd probably choose Sojourn! Great playing from all involved. Highly recommended!

"One of the greatest sessions – if not the best – cut as a leader by pianist Mickey Tucker, and a soaring set of spiritual tunes that best shows his talents as a player and arranger! The group's a sextet, with Junior Cook on tenor, Bill Hardman on trumpet, and Ronnie Cuber on baritone – and most tracks have a fast comping sound that's part Horace Silver Blue Note and part Strata East post-Coltrane grooving. Titles include "Dusseldorf Dance", "Fast Train To Zurich", "Tunisian Festival", and "The Silent Mind Of Fraulein Stein"." © 1996-2012, Dusty Groove America, Inc.