JAZZ MONTHLY - UK - November 1961

Don Rendell - A New Phase

"You know me" said Don Rendell, "Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Allen Eager, Stan Getz, Brew Moore, in fact anyone stylistically descended from Pres, those are the tenor players who used to be my idols. I used to try to sound like them or at least to play in their style. well, all that's changed now and I don't even play the records I have at home by those musicians anymore. I haven't turned against them, it's just that my interests are centred elsewhere. About a year ago I found myself listening more and more to John Coltrane and it seemed to me that this was the right way to play tenor. It's something I can't really explain, it just happened. A well as Coltrane there are a lot of others whose work is stimulating. Rollins of course, Johnny Griffin, and have you heard Stanley Turrentine? It's very exciting to have this new prospect open up in front of you."

We were sitting in a pub after a recording session, featuring Don's new quintet, had come to a successful conclusion in a nearby studio. It was the first time I had heard the group and in fact, the first time I'd seen Don for nearly two years. "My musical outlook is different now" he said when we met "but everything else is still the same". His sense of humour remains unchanged; outrageous statements are made in a serious, pokerfaced manner. "I used to be branded as a technique. 'That Don Rendell' people would say 'he's just all technique. Lots of notes all over the instrument' Well, I've got away from that now. I'll let you know a secret. I didn't practice for three years". On a more serious note he began to explain why and how his overall sound has altered since his allleginces have moved from Lester Young and Al Cohn to Coltrane and Griffin. "The first thing I did was change my instrument. When you've been playing a Conn for ten years you get stuck with a Conn sound. I used to get a muffled, cloudy sort of tone. People used to come up to me and say 'You got a muffled tone' and I'd say 'Yes, I like it'. Nowadays I'm getting the kind of sound I want, the one that fits in with the concept of the group and with my own musical ideals, and I find it's a lot easier to play that way!" The group itself is young, enthusiastic and continually improving. Partnering Don in the front line is Graham Bond, an alto player of tremendous individuality. Before the session, and before we met the remaining members of the quintet, I admitted that I had not heard Graham play, although I had heard about him from several friends at Cambridge. Don looked at me in disbelief. "You not heard Graham play?" Then you're in for an experience this afternoon. He's one of the most positive players I've ever met and there are times when he scares me stiff. Occasionally he tries to play chords on the alto and sometimes they don't come off. A lot of people put him down and say his technique is too unorthodox but this is simply not true. Graham is a great individualist and if he feels like playing this way then obviously he would be wrong to conform to convention simply for the sake of conforming. I have a theory that most of the really great American players, Rollins and Coltrane for example, they had this individuality in advance of instrumental mastery. Nowadays, of course, Coltrane can play absolutely anything he likes, technically, but at the outset he had the ideas if not the means to put them over. Graham's the same. Fortunately he has all the confidence in the world. I'll tell you this too, there's no other alto player in the country I'd rather have in the group". He examined the debris of a Cornish Pasty on his plate and decided that a little humour was required. "Of course it's Graham's band but by some strange coincidence I'm the leader."

The session had been called to remake two titles from an earlier date (held on June, 17 1961); the completed LP is due for issue in Britin and America on the Jazzland label, one of Riverside's subsidaries, and the recording was supervised by Ed Michel and Chris Whent of Interdisc, the company which distributes Riverside in Europe. At the session I attended (August 29, 1961) the group recorded Graham Bond's Bring Back The Burch (in honour of pianist Johnny Burch) and Burch's Manumission. "This is from the verb 'manumit' which means freedom from slavery" explained Don. "It's our message to Charlie Mingus!" The group benefits greatly from a well-integrated rhythm section comprimising pianist Johnny Burch, bass player Tony Archer and drummer Phil Kinorra. Phil is an exciting player whose style reminded me of Louis Hayes, although Graham Bond assured me that Sam Woodyard had been a major influence on Kinorra. Graham's own playing was, as Don predicted, a revelation to me, for he is an impassioned soloist whose work communicates with his listeners a bursting enthusiasm. On this showing I would rate him as one of the most exciting soloist in the country. I hope that the resultant record reflects accurately the intensity and freedom of his work. Both numbers featured improvised choruses played by the two saxophones while the rhythm section remainded tactic. During these choruses the collective and spontaneous extemporisations of Rendell and Bond interlocked with such cohesion that listeners may think the passages were written out, or at last rehearsed. So wholeheartedly did Graham fling himself into his task of playing that after one take of Manumission Ed Michel came out of the control box with a thick green cloth in his hands. "Here Graham" he said, "stand on that. The sound of your feet beating out time on the floor when you solo is been picked up by the mikes!" Graham is not a man to be bettered nor does he do things by halves; he played the rest of the date with his shoes off.

When it was all over, the tapes rewound, instruments put away and Graham had run through Chopin's Opus 10, number 12 at the piano, I had the opportunity to talk at lenght with this remarkable alto player. Graham Bond is twenty-three and still a semi-professional; he works as sales manager to central Record Distributors when he is not playing with the quintet. He took up the the alto first at school when he played with a traditional band. (He wanted to play trombone, but the band already had a trombonist). Subsequently he embarked on a thorough training as a classical pianist but found himself becoming more and moreinterested in jazz. He first met Don rendell about four years ago and has spent the intervening years playing gigs with musicians such as Dick Heckstall-Smith and Dick Morrissey. This is first regular job with a band and his long-term ambition is to lead a trio consisting doubling alto and piano plus a bass player and a drummer. His favourite alto players comprise a list embracing nearly everyone who has ever taken up the instrument but there are two whose names come close to the top. "A lot of people seem to think am trying to sound like Cannonball Adderley" he says, "but although I like Cannonball I've not been influenced by him. I have been influenced by Eric Dolphy though, and on ballads my playing reflects my admiration for Art Pepper. Pepper gets such a beautiful sound. On the faster things through I prefer a stronger sound, like Dolphy's or Phil Wood's; there's another fine soloist."

At thirty-five Don Rendell now leads a band of men all at least six years younger than himself. (He is almost old enough to be Phil Kinorra's father). "This is very stimulating" he says. "It's good to work with young people with fresh ideas. I'm not saying it to fit into this set-up perfectly. For instance, these things we do in three-four time time, well I've not played in that time signatures since I've played waltzes with Oscar Rabin! It's a bit hard to think in three-four after twenty years of playing four-four at different speeds". This self-criticism, so typical of Don, is perfectly. As it stands today the quintet is finding its feet both musically and financially. During the month of August, a notoriously bad month for jazz groups, the quintet worked at least three nights a week, a situation only bettered by the longest etablished units playing resident engagements in clubs. If confidence, sincerity and belief in an ideal are measure of success then the Don Rendell Quintet can look forward to a bright future.

As most of the members of the band will be new to readers of this magazine it will serve a useful purpose to include some biographical notes. Graham Bond has been covered in the foregoing paragraphs, the remaining members are as follows:

Johnny Burch: Born January 6, 1932, he started playing boogie at the age of twelve. He never had any formal tution but played in Germany with his unit's dance band during his army service. After his demobilistion he played piano for his own amusement and also worked with a local band at weddings and dances. In 1959 he went to France with a band containing bass player Jeff Clyne and tenor saxist Bobby Wellins. This band toured American Army camps and when he returned to this country last year Johnny joined Allan Ganley's Jazz Makers. He left the Jazz Makers to become a member of the Don Rendell Quartet- as it was then - at Xmas 1960. Since joining Don he has started to compose and arrange, and wrote The Haunt and Manumission, both of which are to be included on the Jazzland LP. (He has also written a ballad which the quintet does not play but which Tony Hall has sent to John Coltrane). His favourite arrangers include Gil evans (he singles out My Ship from the Mles Ahead LP), Ellington and Benny Golson. Golson figures in his list of jazz composers too as does Tadd Dameron. "We play Lady Bird with the quintet" he told me "and it still sounds fresh today. All Dameron's tunes seem to have this freshness, Good Bait, Our Delight and the rest". Bill Evans is his idea of a jazz pianist who is nearly perfect in every aspect although he retains a longstanding respect for Bud Powell, Horace Silver and Oscar Peterson. "Oscar is playing differently now" he maintains, "less notes, a more direct style but still with that tremendous facility."

Tony Archer: The group's bass player was born in Dulwich during July, 1938, and started to study bass at the age of sixteen. He worked around London with his own trio which was, in fact, the Rendell Quintet's present rhythm section. He did his first professional engagement in Scotland before going to the Continent for a year. On his return he joined first the Peter King Quintet then the Harold Mcnair Quartet. He understudied Malcolm Cecil in the London production of The Connection and joined Don rendell at the beginning of June this year. He lists Paul Chambers, Leroy Vinnegar and the late Scott LaFaro as his three favourite bass players.

Phil Konorra: The youngest member of the band was born on October 20, 1940, at Sherwood, Nottingham, and started playing drums four years ago with a musical stage act. He worked in summer shows and variety with his act before coming to London at the beginning of 1960 with a rhythm-and-blues unit run by Heather Logan, sister to Annie Ross. When the rhythm-and-blues unit disbanded he joined the Peter King Quintet, leaving later to work with Ronnie Scott Quintet. He gave up playing the drums for about four or five months to concentrate on a solo night club act but began again earlier this year when he deputised for Tony Mann during a London run of The Connection. He joined Don Rendell in May and lists his favourite drummers as Art Blakey, Louis Hayes, Sam Woodyard, Dannie Richmond, Jimmy Cobb, Philly Joe Jones and Elvin Jones.

Alun Morgan