Featured Artist: Hank Jones

CD Title: For My Father

Year: 2005

Record Label: Justin Time

Style: Straight-Ahead / Classic

Musicians: Hank Jones (piano), George Mraz (bass), Dennis Mackrel (drums)

Review: In one sense, Hank Jones is reminiscent of Tommy Flanagan, who told Attila Zoller in the late 1990’s, “I never sounded so good before.” That certainly is the case with Jones as well, whose 70 years as a professional jazz musician have involved continuous refinement of style, even as Jones remained constant to his adherence to two-handed piano playing a la Teddy Wilson, one of his early influences.

Just as important, Jones’ getting-better-not-older culmination of a lifetime of piano playing recently has received its due recognition. Jones has been winning many of the jazz polls within the past two years after decades of relative obscurity when he was making a living as a studio musician (though still recording his Great Piano Trio at the time) and as a CBS television staff musician, interestingly enough at the recommendation of Andy Williams. All of those years of steady employment could have led to a comfortable retirement and Jones does enjoy a cozy lifestyle with his devoted wife Theodosia in upstate New York. But, basically because it’s in his blood and also at the insistence of legions of fans—many of those fans being a-generation-younger jazz musicians themselves—Jones keeps recording, performing in clubs and delighting audiences with his courteous ways and his elegant style. Indeed playing as well as or better than he ever has, Jones has recorded two CD’s with Joe Lovano, a Great Piano Trio album with his brother Elvin and Richard Davis and a soon-to-be-released Great Piano Trio album, S’Wonderful, with John Patitucci and Jack DeJohnette. And now, surprisingly enough, Jones’ regular trio with George Mraz and Dennis Mackrel has recorded its first Justin Time album. Now, the trio that excited enthusiasts such as Lovano when it appeared in New York jazz clubs can be heard on CD.

The stylistic qualities of most highly regarded piano trios identify their sound, making their music recognizable on successive recordings or on live dates. So what is it about Jones’ trio that makes it distinctive? For distinctive it certainly is.

First of all, there is Jones’ assured, almost stately pace at which he explores the music he plays. Recalling Joe Henderson’s version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Johnny Come Lately,” I was prepared for another medium-fast interpretation of the song. But Jones slows it down into an elegant swing, which highlights another of Jones’ characteristics: his re-harmonization, ever so slightly, of standards in his everlasting learning process when he plays music. None of Jones’ songs repeat themselves as he continues to find harmonic values within them that he hadn’t expressed before on record, even as he remains true to the composers’ intentions of telling a story by writing a song. Jones slows down “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise” too, the better to appreciate at his leisure the harmonic possibilities within. In addition, Mraz’s rock-steady bass lines, and his inventive solos support Jones’ work while Mraz retains the strength to carry much of a song on his own, as he does through multiple choruses of solos on Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom.” And then there’s drummer Mackrel, a co-producer of the album, but also an under-rated drummer who uses brushes on many of the tracks, his sensitive drum work on “Pauletta” equally as tasteful as Jones’ piano playing that precedes it.

Jones’ choice of repertoire for For My Father reflects his interests in the inherent values of a tune, whether well known or not. In addition to calling attention to drummer Al Foster’s “Pauletta,” an engaging bossa nova-influenced gem that, sure enough, hasn’t been recorded often enough, Jones includes Milt Jackson’s “SKJ,” a medium tempo blues that relies on the force of Mraz’ walking bass lines for its infectious swing while Jones attaches to the interpretation his own unexpected twists, taking the tune slightly into his own detours before returning to the main road. In addition, drummer James Black’s “Queen Of Hearts” engages the trio in 5/4, certainly recalling “Take Five” in its use of meter, but impressive in how easily and melodically the trio interprets the song as it delves into the essential qualities that make the song appealing to listeners, the meter a given rather than a forced device.

Much of the rest of the album includes music from some of Jones’ famous acquaintances in one of the most respected careers in jazz—and certainly from one of the members of one of the most famous families in jazz. The music of Monk, Ellington and Strayhorn dominate the middle section of the CD, and Jones implicitly includes an acknowledgment of the talent of one of Jones’ protégés by playing Harold Mabern’s “There But For The Grace Of God.” The tune itself brings the album back to its theme as a tribute to Jones’ father.

Even as Jones approaches the age of 87, and despite his long successful career in an endeavor that burns out many musicians before they exit their twenties, he remembers the sacrifices, the values and the losses of his father, for whom he obviously held a deep and abiding respect. Moving his family of ten children from Mississippi to Michigan to provide a better life for them, Henry W. Jones, Sr. lost one 12-year-old daughter, Olive, when she drowned in a nearby lake; he was a deacon at Trinity Baptist Church in Pontiac; and despite the long hours of working as a lumber inspector at Beudette Brothers (later the Yellow Coach & Truck Division of General Motors), he made sure that his talented family adhered to the morals that he believed in.

Hank Jones had this to say about his father when I interviewed him: “My first performance I can remember was being on the stage to recite a poem when I was three or four. I forgot the last half of it, and so they came and picked me up off the stage. My father was a very religious and sincere man. He spent a great deal of time at the Baptist church. There was some kind of meeting going on five or six days a week. On Sunday, he spent all day at the church. He had board meetings, trustees meetings, choir rehearsals and so forth. He attended all of the church services on Sunday and all of the other meetings every day of the week. He wanted me to become a church organist. I became one later, but not at the time he suggested it—strongly, I might add. He was totally committed, you see, to serve the Lord in the church. He did that all of his life.”

It would seem that Jones’ duo album of hymns he recorded with Charlie Haden, Steal Away, would have been an early tribute to Hank Jones’ father, the patriarch who didn’t know how much influence his family would have on the development of jazz. At least Jones’ father was a strong influence on the spiritual feeling of that album. But now, Jones has officially dedicated an album, For My Father, for the person who seems to have guided his decisions throughout his career.

Tracks: Pauletta, Bemsha Swing, Queen Of Hearts, Sophisticated Lady, Johnny Come Lately, Prelude To A Kiss, Lotus Blossom, SKJ, Easy To Love, Because I Love You, Grace Of God, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise

Record Label Website: http://www.justin-time.com

Listen or Buy: @ amazon.com

Reviewed by: Don Williamson

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