Album Reviews

Sundazed's Bob Irwin plays guitar and loves guitarists. In case you haven't noticed, go through the Sundazed catalog and you'll see. Hank Garland, best known as a Nashville session cat who played with Elvis, Eddy Arnold (in his touring band) and many, many others, was equally adept at playing electric jazz and this album on SESAC records issued in 1960 proved it. Adding to the interest here is the inclusion on the session of the very young vibraphonist Gary Burton.

However, a word of caution: despite being a quite good mono recording, the sound is marred by a serious and quite annoying overmodulation distortion that crops up throughout. It must be on the tape. You'll hear it on Garland's guitar, and on the vibes.

If you bought this LP simply because it was included on my July list and the distortion is driving you crazy, I apologize. I can listen through it.

That said, the joys here are in the taut, precise playing-especially the lock-synch between Garland and Burton. They are backed by Bill Pursell on piano and Bob Moore on bass. Pursell was a classically trained musician who played with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra as well as being an in-demand session man. He also had a Top 10 hit single on Columbia in 1963, “Our Winter Love.” Bob Moore, of course, led sessions with his own band for Roy Orbison and was a sideman for Elvis and many, many other Nashville based recording artists, as well as having a hit single of his own called “Mexico,” which many of you oldsters would recognize if I could hum it for you here.

Doug Kirkham and Murrey Harman split the drumming duties. Both were country session men, and both prove they can swing, but of course the main attraction is the simpatico between Burton and Garland. There's a buoyancy to their bounce that epitomizes the optimism of America in 1960 as the turning of the decade seemed to cleanse the country's soul of all of the stupidity and ignorance of the racially intolerant, McCarthyite 1950's seemingly overnight. Would that that happen again at the end of this dark decade!

Anyway, the combo of Garland's warm hollow-bodied electric and Burton's bell-like vibe tones is the big attraction here, and despite the nasty distortion, it's a set worth hearing if the setting is of interest to you. Garland's big, rich chording will delight guitar aficionados of all musical persuasions.

If you want to hear something similar in pristine stereophonic sound, check out the double CD set The Guitar Artistry of Hank Garland: Move! (Sundazed/Euphoria 178), which collects all of his Columbia sessions that followed this. All were produced or co-produced by Nashville based Don Law, whose son became a Boston concert promoter who tried to get me thrown off the radio for dumping on his Paradise Club in Boston. Law hadn't heard the radio sketch I'd done, just about it, so I picked up the phone and challenged him: “I'll play you the tape, and if you don't laugh, I'll apologize on the air, but if you laugh , you have to let me do stand-up at The Paradise Club.” Needless to say, I ended up opening there for The Jam, Television and numerous other acts!

I've got the original Columbia “6 eye” pressing of Garland's Columbia debut, Jazz Winds From Another Direction featuring Burton and Brubeck drummer Joe Morello, and the sound there is spectacular. The double CD including everything Garland recorded for Columbia comes as close as CD can, but I sure hope Sundazed/Euphoria gets around to issuing that LP on LP. Meanwhile there's this sonically flawed, but musically excellent elpee.