Larry Young: 1964-65

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

By now, fans of Larry Young have worn out their copies of the organist's Blue Note leadership albums, including the masterpieces Into Somethin' (1964) and Unity (1965). You also probably have exhausted his hypnotizing albums with Grant Green—Talkin' About (1964), Street of Dreams(1964), I Want to Hold Your Hand (1965) and His Majesty King Funk (1965) as well as Tony Williams Lifetime's Emergency! (1969) and Miles Davis's Bitches Brew (1969), which are gateways to jazz-rock fusion. You may even have worked over his releases with John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Now, thankfully, there's a new trove of Young recordings. Resonance Records has issued a two-CD set of previously unreleased material—Larry Young in Paris: The ORTF Recordings—providing a vital missing link between the two totemic Blue Note recordings just mentioned. Unlike other jazz organists of the 1960s, Young approached the instrument like a conga or bongo, tapping out his solos with a syncopated feel and using distinct chord voicings on modal originals that hummed and popped. This approach was a departure from the more traditional call-and-response church-based attack of other organists then. 

In this regard, Young liberated the instrument from its role as a combo workhorse by building drama with lingering chords while solos were more avant-garde and cerebral, expressing soulful statements rather than blues riffs. 

Here's producer Zev Feldman (above, in Japan earlier this year) on the origin of this material from his liner notes:

"A couple of years ago I was able to make contact with representatives of one of the richest of all the European archives—INA, the The Institut national de l'audiovisuel of France. An initiative of the French government, INA oversees the vaults of the world-famous RTF/ORTF [the TV and radio audio-visual archives], which contain a wealth of broadcasting treasures documenting, among other things, the work of some of the greatest American jazz artists who ever traveled to or lived in France...

"As luck would have it, we discovered in the INA's archives all of the tracks we've included in this album, tracks featuring Larry as either a leader or, in the case of several of the tracks, Larry as a sideman both with the great tenor saxophonist, flutist and bandleader Nathan Davis, and with the Jazz aux Champs-Elysees All Stars under the direction of French music broadcasting icon Jack Dieval."

Young died in 1978 at age 37 after checking into a New York hospital with stomach pains.

As always with Resonance, terrific sound restoration by George Klabin and Fran Gala. Plus an information-rich 68-page booklet. Thus far, this is the finest historical jazz release of the year and a must for fans.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Larry Young in Paris: The ORTF Recordings (Resonance) here.

JazzWax clip: Here's a promo video for the album...

So you have an immediate sense of why Young and this new Resonance set is so important, here's Paris Eyes from Young's Into Somethin' (Blue Note). You dig?

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Larry Young.....

Born: October 7, 1940
Larry "Young" John McCoy - Organ, composer, bandleader, recording artist (1940-1978)

A true innovator on the Hammond B3, Young took a different musical path than any of the other organ masters of his time: Although he started out drawing his major influences from the work of Jimmy Smith and the gospel and blues elements that other players employed, but eventually turned to a more complex, modal approach to the organ with sophisticated harmonic and chordal structure

Larry Young was born on October 7, 1940, and hails from Newark, New Jersey. His background includes study of both classical and jazz music on the piano, but had a natural family bond with the organ. Larry Young, Senior, his father, was an organist and was the first major musical influence on his son. The father, moreover, provided an organ in the family home so that Larry Young, Junior, who had studied piano, could gravitate easily and at his own pace to the organ. In his teen years, Young was relatively inactive musically; but a reawakened interest in the organ, encouraged by his father, propelled Young into music in 1958. After a rhythm and blues apprenticeship, Young gained wider experience with Lou Donaldson; worked around New York and New Jersey with Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley and Tommy Turrentine, among others; and then began heading his own units.

He recorded his first sides for Prestige in 1960 with the offering “Testifying,” followed up with “Young Blues,” the same year, then into “Groove Street,” in ’62. He jumped over to the Blue Note label, and in ’64 put out “Into Somethin.” Young's premier album is thought to be “Unity”, with Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, and Elvin Jones, which came out in 1965. This is considered to be his best outing, and still holds up as a hard bop organ classic. Young’s work for Blue Note (as both a leader and a sideman) was compiled for Mosaic's limited-edition six-CD box set “The Complete Blue Note Recordings.”

Young was attracted to the novel concept of fusion, he played with Miles Davis in 1969, on the “Bitches Brew,” sessions, worked with John McLaughlin, and then Tony Williams' groundbreaking 'Lifetime' in the early '70's, where he was an important third of that band, one of the first jazz fusion groups. From here he recorded two solo albums for Arista, “Larry Young's Fuel,” (1975) and “Spaceball.” (1976)

Larry Young was only 38 when, in 1978, he checked into a hospital suffering from stomach pains, and died from untreated pneumonia.

He was technically superb, playing pedal bass, and independent left and right hands, but with a lighter touch than previous organists, often preferring to solo pianissimo, sometimes being only slightly audible over the drummer. Young also differed from his contemporaries in that he loved to play duets with the drummer, who was invariably his Newark pal, Eddie Gladden. Young was the sole major transitional figure responsible for shifting away from the blues-based style of Jimmy Smith and moving toward a free approach, and he revolutionized the instrument comprehensively, in composition, arrangement, and technique.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=11572

Larry Young - " Moonwalk "