Search - Jackie Mclean :: Jackie's Bag

Make "Jackie's Bag" Your Bag

Michael B. Richman | Portland, Maine USA | 02/15/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's so nice to see Jackie McLean's "Jackie's Bag" back in print via Blue Note's RVG Series. I had the good fortune to pick up this fine disc in its original offering back in the early 90s. "Jackie's Bag" combines material from two sessions -- three songs from 1/18/59 and six songs from 9/1/60 -- on one disc. The tracks "Appointment In Ghana," "A Ballad For Doll," "Isle Of Java," "Melonae's Dance," and "Medina" are from the 9/1/60 session featuring Jackie, Tina Brooks, Blue Mitchell, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers, and Art Taylor. A sixth track from that date also included here, "Street Singer," is also available on Tina Brooks' "Back To The Tracks," a limited edition Blue Note that is most likely still in print. These six previously mentioned tunes are the highlight of the album -- what a magnificent band! The disc's first three tracks, "Quadrangle," "Blues Inn" and "Fidel," are from the 1/18/59 session featuring Jackie with Sonny Clark, Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. While I'm a huge Sonny Clark fan, these three tunes have always left me a little cold -- maybe that is why Alfred Lion stopped the date after only three songs. Despite this, this is an outstanding CD, and with improved remastering and new liner notes, no Blue Note fan should be without it."

A full bag

Matt Bailey | SLC, Utah | 09/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've only been listening to McLean for the past couple of months...until this album, all as a sideman, to Sonny Clark, Miles, Art Blakey, etc. This is my first album of him as a leader...and it's phenomenal. All the compositions (mostly by Jackie, with a few by tenorist Tina Brooks) are top-notch, my personal favorites being "Fidel" (from the 1959 session)and Isle of Java by Brooks.



The cd has two different bands on it, from a 1959 session and a 1960 session. It would be impossible for me to rate one higher, for two reasons. The first band consists of (along with Mclean) Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Clark and Donald Byrd. The second retains Chambers, but substitutes Jones for Art Taylor, Clark for Kenny Drew, and Byrd for Blue Mitchell. I personally like Jones over Taylor, like Clark and Drew equally, and prefer Mitchell to Byrd. The compositions on both dates are excellent...if there is one nod to the 2nd date, it's the inclusion of underrated Tina Brooks, a tenor player from the Hank Mobley school.



In any case, this album is essential for Blue Note lovers, hard-bop enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the razor alto playing of McLean, who is finer on this album than any date I've heard him on. I can't wait to get Let Freedom Ring now. Buy it!"

Jackie's "Too Much"? Or Too Much Mclean, Too Little Brooks

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 11/24/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I indiscriminately tossed six unplayed CDs into the changer for a long trip. When this one came up, all it took was one note to recognize the unmistakable sound of Jackie Mclean. If Paul Desmond's sound is, as it's frequently been characterized, like a "dry martini," Jackie's is a glass of rot-gut rye whiskey, hold the ice. Leonard Bernstein once insisted that a jazz player's tone frequently contains a simultaneous hint of joy and pain, using Louis Armstrong's trumpet sound as an example. Had Jackie been present, he would have had no difficulty whatsoever making his point.



Though never a marquee player, Mclean was always a respected, prolifically-recorded front-liner, going from bebop to hard bop to avant garde and back to mainstream without getting bogged down in fusion, new-age, or electronics. As a contemporary of giants like Bird, Stitt, Cannonball, Phil Woods, Desmond, Konitz, and Art Pepper, he pretty much held his own; as a leader or session player he always goes a step further: he dominates like few other instrumental voices in jazz. He's an artist whose medium is not paint and brush but metal and blowtorch, always leaving a permanent mark--due to his primarily modal and minor-key compositions, his lament-like solos and, above all, that acid, sweet-sour tone.



"Jackie's Bag" is fine, representative Mclean, recommended as essential to collectors and as a good introduction to anyone who's new to his playing. For me, the primary interest was the rarely recorded Tina Brooks, who has a small albeit devoted cult-like following. Surprise (not): on a Mclean session, he sounds so much like Jackie, an inexperienced listener could easily mistake him for the leader. At least Brooks' presence in the ensemble, especially on the last three tunes, adds some fuller, more interesting textures to the spare Mclean-Donald Byrd unison lines of the opening numbers. Moreover, a careful listener will hear that Brooks' sound, though in the same high register as Mclean's alto, is lighter and (to my ears) more welcome for the distance than the trenchant tones of Mclean. More importantly, his melodic lines are more varied, interesting, and freshly allusive (no obvious quotations like Mclean's insertion of an entire chorus of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the 6th track) than the leader's. Though far from being conspicuous in this company, he's the best soloist on the date.



Byrd and Mitchell play with the same sober, assured authority as Mclean; Clark and Drew, as usual, acquit themselves well--but they all sound pretty much like musical extensions of the main man on the session. All in all, a very solid, somewhat typical, Van Gelder-engineered Blue Note date but not terribly engaging and certainly not exciting or memorable."