Who’s the latest jazz giant to land a fresh edition of a canonical album in the retail racks courtesy of Craft Recordings’ Original Jazz Classics reissue program? That’d be pianist-composer Mal Waldron. The LP is Mal/2, cut in 1957 and released the same year by Prestige, with a load of talent on board and raising the bar of quality, including John Coltrane on tenor sax, Jackie McLean on alto, Bill Hardman on trumpet, and Art Taylor on drums. The byproduct of two sessions nearly a month apart, the sounds are cohesive in how they navigate away from the post-bop norm of the late 1950s. Mal/2 is out July 28 on 180 gram vinyl in a tip-on jacket, mastered analogue from the original tapes.
In the various synopses of his career, Mal Waldron is reliably credited as Billie Holiday’s final accompanist (a job that began the same month as Mal/2’s first session), with his work on a few jazz masterworks (Charles Mingus’ Blues & Roots, Max Roach’s Percussion Bitter Sweet, Eric Dolphy’s two At the Five Spot volumes, Abbey Lincoln’s Straight Ahead) peppered in.
There may also be mention of his enduring collaboration with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. They first recorded together on Lacy’s second album Reflections, released in 1958 by Prestige subsidiary New Jazz, notably the first album dedicated entirely to the music of Thelonious Monk. Although The Quest, issued in ’62 by New Jazz, is often cited as Waldron’s masterpiece as leader, Dolphy’s participation has tended to steal the spotlight a bit. Such is the case with Mal/2, which has been picked apart and released whole under Coltrane’s name, as on the 5CD collection of Trane’s ’50s support work Side Steps.
After gradually rebounding from a 1963 heroin overdose and the ensuing mental-physical breakdown, Waldron moved to Europe, began recording and performing again and essentially never stopped until his death in 2002. And rather than landing a consensus pick on a short (or long) list of essential jazz recordings, it’s Waldron’s voluminous studio sessions and the myriad captured live sets that secure his posthumous reputation, establishing him navigating deftly between the avant-garde and a warm, sincere classicism, and often subtly intermingling the two disciplines (a facility he shared with Lacy).
There was no explicitly named jazz avant-garde in 1957, and yet Mal/2, while aptly tagged as a post-bop date, still registers like it’s searching for something new. The record followed hot on the heels of Mal-1, which was cut in November 1956 with Waldron’s band of trumpeter Idrees Sulieman, alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce, bassist Julian Euell, and drummer Arthur Edgehill. Sulieman and Euell are also heard on Mal/2, along with Coltrane, Hardman, McLean, Taylor, alto/baritone saxophonist Sahib Shihab, and drummer Ed Thigpen.
It feels fitting that Mal/2 is equally divided between Waldron originals and borrowed material, specifically Cole Porter’s “From This Moment On,” the Jerome Kern-Dorothy Fields chestnut “The Way You Look Tonight,” and a gripping, eerie interpretation of Holiday’s “Don’t Explain.” This even split posits that the album was approached as something more than just a blowing/jam session, even if Waldron’s songs aren’t distinguished by compositional daring.
“J.M.’s Dream Doll,” a slow, steamy number written in tribute to McLean’s wife, is the strongest of Waldron’s tunes. The horns are tough and sharp, Euell’s anchoring presence is huge but supple, and the composer’s piano is expressive and unpredictable. “One by One” is a solid enough hunk of bluesy writing, but it’s the playing (the soloing, especially Sulieman’s) in the piece that puts it over the top. And “Potpourri” is an up-tempo bebop burner and something of a collective muscle flex for the album’s close.
But “Potpourri” is striking in how the band maintains expressiveness rather than simply flaunting their handle on bop structures. And the emotional punch is even stronger across “The Way You Look Tonight” in an inspired arrangement that delivers the expected Modern Jazz twist while retaining the tune’s recognizable essence. Waldron and company aren’t falling back on standards but instead invigorating them, an approach Coltrane would carry deep into his Impulse era.
The Porter selection is handled with vigor and is a nice bookend to “Potpourri,” but it’s the intense, complex arrangement of “Don’t Explain” that is Mal/2’s true standout, the piece imbued with deep feeling (and a touch of Mingus influence) from start to finish. “Don’t Explain” was reportedly Holiday’s final song (a collab with Arthur Herzog Jr.), recorded in 1946. Waldron cutting the song at the beginning of his working relationship with Holiday (two years before her passing) really adds to the alure.
Along with Euell (and Waldron, obviously) Coltrane was present for both of Mal/2’s sessions, playing on all of the album’s tracks. Trane is in good form but doesn’t dominate the proceedings. Waldron’s playing is distinctive throughout, reinforcing that this opportunity at the leadership role was wholly deserved.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
