Thad Jones • Mel Lewis – Consummation (Blue Note, 1970)

Thad Jones (flgn, arr); Mel Lewis (d); Snooky Young (tr); Danny Moore (tr); Al Porcino (tr); Marvin Stamm (tr); Eddie Bert (tb); Benny Powell (tb); Jimmy Knepper (tb); Cliff Heather (b tb); Jerome Richardson (ss, as, fl, al fl); Jerry Dodgion (as, cl, fl, al fl); Billy Harper (ts, fl); Eddie Daniels (ts, cl, fl); Richie Kamuca (bs, cl); Pepper Adams (bs); Joe Farrell (bs); Jimmy Buffington (Fr hn); Earl Chapin (Fr hn); Dick Berg (Fr hn); Julius Watkins (Fr hn); Howard Johnson (tu); David Spinozza (g); Roland Hanna (p, el p); Richard Davis (b, el b)

Recorded on January 20, 21 & 28 and May 25, 1970

Thad Jones, born and raised in Michigan with his equally renowned brothers Hank and Elvin, is featured in Mark Styker's excellent new book, Jazz From Detroit (University of Michigan Press, 2019).  Stryker describes the birth and lasting impact of the big band that Jones formed with drummer Mel Lewis:

"On Monday, Feb. 7, 1966, in a pie-shaped basement 15 steps below 7th Avenue in Manhattan, the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra made its debut at the Village Vanguard.  The band ... was an instant smash, and Jones was soon recognized as one of the most important and influential composer-arrangers in jazz.  More than anyone else, as critic-musician Bill Kirchner once put it, Jones revitalized post-war big band writing for the conventional ensemble of saxophones, trumpets, trombones and rhythm section.  Jones created a new template.  On top of a Basie and Ellington foundation he added all the harmonic and rhythmic advances since bebop, even venturing into modal territory mapped out by John Coltrane.  It was big band music in the present tense.  In some ways it still is."

Before partnering with Mel Lewis in 1966, Thad Jones played with Count Basie’s band for nine years, where he honed his skills as a big band composer and arranger.  Jones also possessed a unique and singularly compelling voice on trumpet and cornet.  Charles Mingus famously described Jones' sound as "Bartok with valves," and trumpeter Tom Harrell quipped that Jones’s imaginative tone was “like Louis Armstrong on acid”!

Mel Lewis also had a background in big bands, notably with Stan Kenton in the middle-1950s and Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz band in the early-1960s.  Many have remarked that Mulligan’s non-traditional approach to big band would serve as an inspiration for what Lewis and Jones would do with their orchestra.  Lewis described his approach to big band drumming in a revealing 1978 interview for Modern Drummer:

On his ensemble-focused approach to drumming: "Listening is the whole thing. I’ll tell you exactly how I play. My whole approach to playing is reaction. I don’t listen to myself play. I’m not aware of myself because I’m too busy listening to everything going on around me. All my body is doing is reacting to that. Sometimes I’m forcing things, making things happen another way, but I’m reacting to everything I hear. The composition I’m creating as I play is because of what I’m hearing. How can you work out how you’re going to accompany somebody? You can’t! You’re supposed to be complementing and accompanying. Everything depends on your ears. If I’m busy listening to me, then I’m not hearing the rest of the band.  ...When the band is playing as an ensemble, I’m a part of that ensemble. I’ve been told another reason I’m not noticed so much in our band is because I’m heard as part of that ensemble in its entirety — which is exactly what I’m striving for. The rhythm is a section of three individual instruments. We’re the only section of that sort. You’ve got four trumpets, five saxes, and four trombones, basically. All those horns are playing together to get one big beautiful sound of harmony. Nobody sticks out. As a listener you can isolate if you want to hear the drums. But, when you hear the whole band and say; 'Man, that’s one big sound,' that’s when it’s right."

On the importance of dynamics: "What counts is intensity. Volume doesn’t mean a damn thing. There’s a volume you can play at that’s sensible. To me, piano to mezzo forte is enough volume for normal playing in a big band. This way the whole band can play that way and you’ll have better feeling and better intonation. ... I control the band no matter what. The drummer is in control of that volume."

On soloing: "I’ve been getting a lot of complements from young drummers. They ask me; 'How do you think like that?' I think like a horn player. I like to cross bar lines, to think meters without thinking anything other than 4/4. I sort of think like Thad. He’ll start phrases in the middle of nowhere, continue them on through and end up where you’re supposed to. You really have to have a very good awareness of where you are."

Less than four years after their 1966 debut, the Jones/Lewis band went into the studio to record Consummation.  The Solid State label had released the band's first four studio albums, but Liberty Media (the parent company of Blue Note Records at that time) had recently acquired Solid State. As result, Consummation was the band's first (and only) release on Blue Note.

The band that made Consummation was loaded with formidable soloists.  It was truly an all-star aggregation.  Consider the band's woodwinds: Jerome Richardson, Jerry Dodgion, Billy Harper, Eddie Daniels, Richie Kamuca, Pepper Adams, Joe Farrell.  That is ridiculous.  It's almost like Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig Yankee teams of the mid-1920s, a "Murders' Row" of saxophonists!

Here’s the album’s opening cut, “Dedication”:

In 1979, Thad Jones abruptly left the band and moved to Europe.  Subsequently, the band was renamed the Mel Lewis Orchestra.  In 1990, when Mel Lewis passed, the band became the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.  It continues to perform on Monday nights at the Village Vanguard to this day, an engagement that has lasted for more than fifty years.

More from Thad Jones & Mel Lewis

If you would like to hear more of the Jones/Lewis Orchestra in the 1970s, consider New Life (A&M Horizon, 1976).  It’s another record that pairs an astounding array of soloists with Jones’ imaginative composing and arrangements.