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Unity

Unity

  • Artist: Larry Young
  • Total time: 39:41
  • Availability: In stock
  • Item #: 20402700
  • Your Price: $11.98
Currently available in US only.

Review

On his sophomore date as a leader, jazz organist Larry Young began to display some of the angular drive that made him a natural for the jazz-rock explosion to come barely four years later. While about as far from the groove jazz of Jimmy Smith as you could get, Young hadn't made the complete leap into freeform jazz-rock either. Here he finds himself in very distinguished company: drummer Elvin Jones, trumpeter Woody Shaw, and saxman Joe Henderson. Young was clearly taken by the explorations of saxophonists Coleman and Coltrane, as well as the tonal expressionism put in place by Sonny Rollins and the hard-edged modal music of Miles Davis and his young quintet. But the sound here is all Young: the rhythmic thrusting pulses shoved up against Henderson and Shaw as the framework for a melody that never actually emerges ("Zoltan" -- one of three Shaw tunes here), the skipping chords he uses to supplant the harmony in "Monk's Dream," and also the reiterating of front-line phrases a half step behind the beat to create an echo effect and leave a tonal trace on the soloists as they emerge into the tunes (Henderson's "If" and Shaw's "The Moontrane"). All of these are Young trademarks, displayed when he was still very young, yet enough of a wiseacre to try to drive a group of musicians as seasoned as this -- and he succeeded each and every time. As a soloist, Young is at his best on Shaw's "Beyond All Limits" and the classic nugget "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise." In his breaks, Young uses the middle register as a place of departure, staggering arpeggios against chords against harmonic inversions that swing plenty and still comes out at all angles. Unity proved that Young's debut, Into Somethin', was no fluke, and that he could play with the lions. And as an album, it holds up even better than some of the work by his sidemen here. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Track Listing

1. Zoltan 7:36
2. Monk's Dream 5:45
3. If 6:42
4. Moontrane 7:18
5. Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise 6:20
6. Beyond All Limits 6:00

Details of This Recording

  • Label: Blue Note
  • Credits:
  • Additional Info:
  • Styles:
    • Jazz
    • Jazz-Funk
    • Soul-Jazz
    • Fusion
    • Post-Bop
    • Hard Bop
    • Modal Music
    • Avant-Garde Jazz

Contents

Remastered!

Zoltan; Monk's Dream; If; The Moontrane; Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise; Beyond All Limits.

Larry Young, Organ; Joe Henderson, Tenor Sax; Elvin Jones, Drums; Woody Shaw, Trumpet.

Quotes

His technique is out of sight; he has very big ears and a beautiful time conception. Larry Young is where jazz is going on the organ! -Woody Shaw

Read About This Recording

When Jimmy Smith burst upon the jazz scene during 1956-57, he became the dominant force of the organ. Though he had been preceded by Fats Waller, Bill Doggett and Wild Bill Davis, Smith modernized his instrument, swung hard and always played with a great deal of soul. Nearly every organist to emerge during the next decade was not only inspired by Smith but closely emulated his sound and style.

Larry Young started out sounding a lot like Smith too, but by the mid-1960s he had absorbed some of the aspects of John Coltrane's style and was quickly becoming a new and original force on the organ. Of Young's series of recordings for Prestige and Blue Note, 1965's Unity is considered his classic. Leading an all-star quartet that also featured trumpeter Woody Shaw, tenor-saxophonist Joe Henderson and drummer Elvin Jones, Young does the impossible and holds his own with his remarkable sidemen. The group performs three of Shaw's originals (best known of which is The Moontrane), Henderson's If, Thelonious Monk's Monk's Dream and the standard Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise.

The music is forward-looking hard bop that is open to the influence of avant-garde jazz while still swinging. The musicians each inspire each other and Larry Young sounds unlike any of his predecessors, showing why he is considered one of the giants of the organ.

-Scott Yanow