The Wayback: A nearly forgotten artifact of the hard bop glut
THE BOBBY TIMMONS TRIO
THE BOBBY TIMMONS TRIO
In Person: Live at the Village Vanguard
Riverside 1961
This recording hails from — and is a victim of — the great jazz glut. Between 1955 and 1965, labels like Prestige, Blue Note and others were documenting post-bebop and hard bop small groups at a dizzying clip. In New York and around the globe, it was a time of accelerated development among musicians, and rapid refinement of established styles and norms/playing rituals. The best analogy is that jazz hit a kind of warp drive: Titans like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis were making goalposts-moving records year after year, and at the same time, their close (and distant) musical associates made sly and often under-appreciated contributions to the conversation.
Bobby Timmons was one of the participants in this peak productivity moment, and this live album, which features bassist Ron Carter and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath, is one under-appreciated document among many from the period. By the time of this recording, in 1961, Timmons was known for helping to expand the repertoire of drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with a set of tunes (“Dat Dere,” “Moanin’”) that blended kicky R&B rhythms with ear-grabbing gospel chords. These became jazz “hits” and were one reason Blakey’s group became revered as hard bop’s most productive finishing school.
Leading a trio, Timmons serves up those tunes and other, similarly spirited originals — a lesser-heard gem here is the tricky “So Tired” — with his characteristically nimble, crisp approach. He gravitates to the laid-back side of the street, and in temperament is aligned with the groove-forward style associated with Red Garland and Ahmad Jamal. Throughout, it’s possible to hear Timmons cultivate a very particular swing aesthetic that is picked up (and expanded on) by his rhythm section. He doesn’t overload the music with information; instead, he conveys soul by implication, keeping the focus on the casual, loose, perpetual-motion feeling known to jazzheads of the day.
To hear jazz heroics on an epic scale, dial up Coltrane; to hear swing as a steadying force, seek out this artifact from an ordinary night in (if the sparse applause is any indication) a less-than-packed Village Vanguard. In its easygoing way, it fills in precious details about the level of artistry that audiences came to take for granted during the jazz glut.
KEY TRACKS
“So Tired,” “Dat Dere,” “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.”
FURTHER INQUIRY
Wynton Kelly: Someday My Prince Will Come. (1961)
INFLUENCED
Ethan Iverson/Ben Street/Tootie Heath: Tootie’s Tempo. (2013).