Search - Larry Young :: Mother Ship

Another tasty remaster from the connoisseur series

B.J. Packett II | Annapolis, MD | 01/18/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Casual listeners following the major RVG releases need no better introduction to Larry Young than his increasingly esteemed Unity outing with Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson and Elvin. Nonetheless, perhaps his final Blue Note date, Mother Ship, from 1969 may serve as a proper introduction to the highly combustible Eddie Gladden occupying the drum chair on this particular outing. Gladden is a real firecracker on the kit, and if (potentially unfair) comparisons with Unity will persist, the absence of the immortal Elvin on this date will perhaps surprisingly not prove to be the shortcoming of the album in question. Gladden is blowing up all over the record, and, I must confess, prompted a bit of detective work on my part in service of finding other traces of his musical existence.



As is well noted elsewhere, some of your stodgier jazz consumers would sooner be regaling themselves with the anodyne sounds of BBmak than they would stand for a Hammond violating the chastity of their treasured idiom. As is also well noted, Larry Young is in fact the aural tonic for those who would normally hear in an organ little more than straight grease. Larry's playing here is exploratory and perhaps a bit transitional, to be sure, but it's also very GOOD. And while I don't think the songwriting is quite as strong - to perpetuate myself a somewhat unfortunate critical comparison - as the stuff on Unity, Young still writes fairly compelling heads and renders some interesting forms on which this outfit displays its prodigious chops. Herbert Morgan strikes me as an underrated monster of the tenor, obvious Trane parallels be damned. Lee of the non-brothers Morgan needs no introduction here, even though this may not be the disc with which to begin your Lee Morgan collection.



Against the conventional move to decry the putrescence of art under the market-driven philistinism of the late-capitalist recording industry (see BBmak), I welcome with big ears the opportunity (however transient) to delve a little deeper into the van Gelder vaults in order to hear somewhat marginal little gems like the one you're getting ready to order."