Organ albums w/ horn(s), but NO GUITAR -- like Larry Young's UNITY

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Johnny Hammond Smith - Talk That Talk

(from 1960 with Oliver Nelson (on some tunes only), George Tucker, Art Taylor and Ray Barretto)

two more in the tenor/organ/drums format (available cheaply on cd the last time i looked)

Jimmy Forrest - Heart of the Forrest (with Shirley Scott and Randissimo Marsh)

John Simon - Legacy (with Don Patterson and Greg McDonald)

Damn! forgot all of them!

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

So, what's the deal with there being fewer trumpet players on organ albums??

I dunno. But really Zorn was right. You can name the main trumpet players who worked frequently with organists pretty easily:

Blue Mitchell

Virgil Jones

Frank Robinson (Willis Jackson's regular trumpet player)

Bill Hardman

Lew Soloff

Jim Rotundi

A few others, like Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard made a few (justly) celebrated organ combo albums. But, apart from Frank Robinson, none of the people I listed are what you might call organ specialists (Virgil is nearest to that). Looking through my collection to find those people, however, I began to get something of a feel for the answer.

First, organists tended to be leaders, though most did some sideman work, too. And the bands they led were characteristically trios. You could get more work as a trio - because you could also get gigs backing tenor players like Turrentine, Stitt, Ammons and other tenor players who worked as singles - and split the proceeds with fewer people.

The exception was, of course, the tenor/organ combo. But these tended to be focused on the tenor player (McDuff's is an exception).

There were few organ BANDS in the sixties - Willis Jackson's and Lou Donaldson's were about the only ones (and, except for Bill Hardman, who was in and out like a yoyo, Lou seemed to keep his trumpet players only a few weeks). In the early seventies, some organists like McGriff and McDuff began to carry larger groups and McGriff's included a trumpet, usually simply as part of a horn section though, for recordings, Blue Mitchell came in a lot and obviously took a solo role. Earland also started having a trumpet player at the same time but had a radically different, much more Hard Bop, approach to horns from any other organist, which is why Lee and Freddie were superb with him, and also a strong general preference, it seems to me, for trombonists.

So I suspect that there was an environment that systematically tended to exclude trumpet players, moderated by the personal approaches of some bandleaders who did hire trumpet players on a regular basis, if only in the seventies.

Glad to hear of alternative views, as I've kind of made this up as I went along

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Here's another thought.

Not everyone can play Soul Jazz - you need a certain sensibility and kind of experience - or wants to.

Who were the influential post-war trumpet players up to the early seventies? Diz, Miles, Brownie, Lee. I suspect that's about it.

Who were the influential tenor players? Dex, Rollins, Trane, Joe Henderson - but also Jacquet, Ammons, Stitt, Jaws.

It looks like tenor players had a lot more, and more appropriate, role models for organ combo work.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh, and another album I've just remembered

Johnny Griffin - Soul groove - Atlantic with Patton & Hank Jones (org) Matthew Gee (tb), Aaron Bell (b, tuba), Art Taylor (d), Potato Valdez (cga, bgo)

And of course, Griffin was an influential tenor player who could play this stuff but preferred not to.

MG