Tommy Flanagan: Four Classic Albums

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Label:

Avid

February/2020

Sadly underrated during his lifetime but not by musicians, Tommy Flanagan was a Detroit pianist who combined slick technique with a cool elegance. These original four vinyl albums by him were It’s Magic, a quintet date with Redd and Fuller, Trio Overseas, cut in Stockholm with Little and Jones, and The Cats, with Sulieman and a young Coltrane, all taped in 1957. The last and least reissue-worthy is The King and I, a 1958 quartet session with Harden on trumpet and flugelhorn.

Bread-headed producers of this era always looked on jazz versions of Broadway hit musicals as a sure thing when in fact they were usually both artistically and commercially disastrous. And Charlie Parker himself would have struggled to make credible jazz out of such Rodgers and Hammerstein trifles as ‘Shall We Dance’, ‘We Kiss in a Shadow’ and ‘Hello Young Lovers’.

Far more interesting is the quintet with that fine altoist Sonny Redd (whatever happened to him?) and Flanagan’s steaming trio with Little and Elvin. Their brisk version of the Parker blues ‘Relaxin’ at Camarillo’ (also known as ‘Passport’) is scintillating. Best of all is The Cats, a vintage recording by Rudy Van Gelder, probably for the Prestige label and one of the very rare instances of Trane and Burrell playing together. They’re both in top form too. Indeed many listeners still believe Coltrane’s early-Miles period to have been his best. Sulieman is more than capable and the rhythm section of Flanagan, Watkins and Hayes is hard to beat, even with Burrell strumming quietly four to a bar, à la Freddie Green. Flanagan’s opening tune, ‘Minor Mishap’, is a post-bop classic.

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