Horace Parlan - Headin' South (1983 Japanese Blue Note BNJ-71007 Promo LP)

Vinyl: NM
Sleeve: EX
Obi: EX

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Horace Parlan - Headin' South | Vinyl LP - 1983 Japanese Blue Note Promo Reissue (BNJ-71007, Modern Piano Collection, Toshiba EMI Ltd.)

Horace Parlan was born in Pittsburgh in 1931 and contracted polio as a child, which left the fingers of his right hand partially paralysed. He compensated by building an unusually powerful left hand and a sparse, rhythmically concentrated right-hand approach. By 1957 he was in Charles Mingus's band; by 1960 he was recording four albums for Blue Note in a single year, all at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs.

Headin' South was the last of those four 1960 sessions, cut on 6 December with George Tucker on bass and Al Harewood on drums — the same rhythm section from the Us Three date in April — plus Ray Barretto on congas for five of the eight tracks. Barretto was deep in his Afro-Cuban jazz period at this point, recording prolifically with Blue Note and Prestige artists. His congas on "Headin' South," "The Song Is Ended" and "Summertime" push the pocket of Harewood's drumming sideways. "Congalegre" — the title is Parlan's invented portmanteau of conga and allegre — features Harewood and Tucker without Barretto, the trio alone at pace. Parlan's piano on the ballads is deliberate and spare, as on "Prelude to a Kiss" and "My Mother's Eyes." Tucker died in 1965 at thirty-eight from a stroke mid-performance; Harewood lived to ninety. This 1983 Japanese pressing is a promo issue from the Blue Note Modern Piano Collection series, manufactured by Toshiba EMI Ltd.