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Disc 3

I reviewed this record (loved it) for Cadence in the August 1989 issue, not long after it was released. Some of my earliest published jazz writing. It was just Joe's second album as a leader and he was under the radar enough that I could write: “He plays changes with an authority that should make a few more well-known tenorists nervous.” After the review was assigned to me but before publication, Joe apparently had some things he wanted to say to the writer, so the magazine gave him the number at my parents’ house in Bloomington, Ind., where I was living (post-grad school but pre-first newspaper job at the South Bend Tribune). I was 25. So one day the phone rang, and my mom answered and called over to me: "Somebody named Joe Lovano wants to talk to you." I’ve forgotten the details of the conversation, but my recollection is that he just wanted me to know how personal and important a project the recording was to him. A musician of his stature today would never make that kind of a call to a critic — though I hasten to add that in 1989 I was young and still green, and Joe was seasoned but not famous. I combined the review of Joe's record with a review of a Houston Person record and on the same page is my review of the third Quest record (Liebman, Beirach, McClure, Hart).   Also, for the record, Joe's call to me in fact came after I had finished the review and had just sent it to the editor, on a floppy disc by snail mail in those pre-Internet days. So the call did not influence the writing in any way. The moral of the story is that I’m getting old.

Blue Mitchell's albums on the Mainstream label were (to my ears) generally terrible. The one I had hoped would be the exception was this one -Vital Blue. With Joe Henderson as a sideman my expectations were quite high. It turned out that the album was a mixed bag. About half the tracks were (to my taste) quite enjoyable. The remaining half were spoiled by a  vocal obligato that made me want to quickly move on. All of this is disappointing as I have greatly enjoyed Blue Mitchell's playing as leader and sideman on numerous albums on a variety of labels other than Mainstream.