"Bassist Red Mitchell, a native New Yorker (born September 20, 1927) is, like many West Coasters, a Californian by migration. He has been steadily associated on records with Hampton Hawes from the first Hawes Trio album made in June, 1955. Mitchell has also recorded with combos led by Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Red Norvo, Jack Montrose, and Gerry Mulligan. He has also made two LP's with combos of his own, the most recent 'Presenting Red Mitchell' for Contemporary (C3538).
"Although Red played piano with Chubby Jackson (at the Royal Roost in 1949), alto sax in an Army band, and the vibories on a recent record album, he had a new love the moment he traded 15 cartons of cigarettes for a string bass while in Germany. Up until then he had been studying the piano on his own. He cultivated the bass in the same way, acquiring bass methods by Bob Haggarr and others and industriously plowing his way through them. Mitchell also learned by listening to every bass player who came his way, on records or alive, acquiring in the process an unusual knowledge of the entire range of bassists.
"'I guess the first bass player that really thrilled me,' Red recently stated, 'was Page.' This was on a Count Basie record even before Mitchell had settled on the bass as his instrument. Ray Brown, who played with Dizzy Gillespie, 'just turned me inside out. I heard the new music, the new phrasing.' At Minton's, Red heard Charlie Mingus, who 'frightened me... because I remember the way he went up to the top of the fiddle.' But the greatest of all bass players to Red was the late Jimmy Blanton, who is generally credited with inaugurating the revolution that took the bass out of the rhythm section in the late 30's and made a melody instrument of it.
"Despite his talking intimacy with the top bassmen of our time, Red feels that he has been more influenced by horn men and pianists than by bassists. He mentions among the jazzmen he has admired and studied: saxists Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Jimmy Giuffre; trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis; and pianists John Lewis and Hampton Hawes.
"As an improviser, Red is to be heard to advantage particularly in 'Broadway' and 'Groovin' High', both of which reveal not only a prodigious command of technique but fast, jazz solos of the very highest order. Red has a fat tone when occasion demands and there are slow, stinging solos to be heard in 'Hampton's Pulpit' and 'The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea'. Insofar as giving the Hawes piano the rhythmic support is needs, Red's pulsating beat is masterful.
"In the fall of 1956 Jim Hall, then a member of Chico Hamilton's group, used to sit in for kicks when Hawes' Trio worked at the Tiffany in Los Angeles. The discovered kinship of feeling between the two led to the invitation that made Hall part of 'All Night Session'. Born in Buffalo, New York on December 4, 1930, Hall was raised in the Buckeye State. Although he attended the well-known Cleveland Institute of Music, receiving a Bachelor's degree in music, Jim studied guitar privately with Brenton Banks. His style was also formed by constant listening to records of the abortive American genius Charlie Christian and the French gypsy giant of the guitar, Django Rheinhardt. Other formative influences include the tenor sax playing of Bill Perkins and Zoot Sims, whose modern improvisational lines are to be heard in Hall's solos.
"At the precocious age of 13, Jim Hall began working with local Ohio bands. For short or long periods, he was associated with the Bob Hardaway Quartet, Ken Hanna's band, with whom he made a Capitol album, and later, with the Dave Pell Octet. In the early months of 1955, Hall came to Los Angeles and began studying with the classical guitarist Vincente Gomez. At about the same time, drummer Chico Hamilton hired Jim for his newly formed Quintet.
"It was the Hamilton Quintet that brought Hall's name into the national jazz arena. During the latter part of '55 and early '56, Jim toured with Chico's Quintet, recorded three albums for Pacific Jazz with a trio of his own that included the late Carl Perkins on piano and Red Mitchell on bass. Since making 'All Night Session' with Hawes, Hall has been steadily associated with the trio of Jimmy Giuffre. He also is to be heard with John Lewis in a new album just made by Lewis without the Modern Jazz Quartet.
"Of the roles of the drums in his Quartet, Hampton Hawes has said: 'I don't like a drummer that plays a heavy foot pedal because it has the dull sound of somebody trudging down the street. I like the drums to sound like a heartbeat - just like a heartbeat pumping blood into the tune, nice and smooth... I don't like a heavy-footed drummer.'
"In drummer Buzz Freeman, born in Chicago on August 11, 1921 and a West Coaster since 1954, Hawes found an ideal man for his quartet. Buzz became interested in music through his two brothers, tenorman Von and guitarist George. At 9 he was playing violin. At 13 he shifted to the piano. Then came the drums. After a stint in the Air Force, during which he flew with Percy Heath of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Percy as a fighter and Buzz as a bomber pilot), he returned to Chicago to gig with a group known as the Freeman Brothers Band. Later he played at Chicago's Beehive, sitting in with men like Sonny Stitt, Bird, J.J. Johnson. Before he settled in California, he played for singers Ella Fitzgerald and Lurlean Hunter and went on the road with Anita O'Day and Sarah Vaughan. 'On drums,' he says, 'Max is my man. On other instruments: Miles Davis, J.J. and Bird.'
"Of the 'All Night Sessions', Hawes recently said reflectively: 'It's hard to put into words how good it feels to play jazz when it's really swinging. That's the greatest feeling I've ever had in my life. I've reached a point where the music fills you up so much emotionally that you feel like shouting hallelujah - like people do in church when they're converted to God. That's the way I was feeling the night we recorded 'All Night Session'. (Arnold Shadow, March 26, 1958. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Hampton Hawes (pi), Jim Hall (gt), Red Mitchell (bs), Buzz Freeman (dr)
1. Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me
2. Blues #3
3. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
4. Blues #4
5. Blues Of A Sort
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