Roy Haynes Quartet - Out Of The Afternoon (1973 Japanese Impulse! Vinyl LP Gatefold)

Roy Haynes Quartet - Out Of The Afternoon | Vinyl LP Gatefold - 1973 Japanese Impulse! Reissue (IMP-88086, Toshiba)

The album came out of a residency rather than a plan. Haynes was working the Five Spot regularly in early 1962, Kirk had recently arrived in New York with his own group on the same bill, and the two bands started sitting in with each other between sets. Grimes and Flanagan were already Haynes's regular associates. Everyone got excited enough about what was happening on the bandstand that Haynes took the idea to Bob Thiele at Impulse!, and the quartet went into Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs on 16 and 23 May 1962. It was a one-off. Haynes recorded for New Jazz before and after, and never made another Impulse! date as a leader. What makes it work is the restraint. Kirk is the only horn and could easily have dominated, but he plays with more control than almost anywhere else in his discography, and the space that leaves lets Haynes stay audible throughout without ever pushing to the front. Flanagan's touch is light and precise, which is exactly what this instrumentation needs, and Grimes was 26 and coming off work with Mingus, Monk and Sonny Rollins.

"Moon Ray" and "Fly Me to the Moon" get taken apart and rebuilt, the standards material handled with enough looseness that the melodies keep slipping sideways. "Raoul" is the fastest thing here, Kirk stating the theme on tenor and manzello at once before soloing on manzello, Flanagan running through it, and Grimes delivering the bowed solo that reviewers have singled out ever since. "Snap Crackle" is the drum feature, built on short call and response figures in sixteenth notes against offbeat eighth-note patterns, with Kirk's flute weaving through it. "If I Should Lose You" and "Some Other Spring" slow things down, the latter an Arthur Herzog Jr. and Irene Kitchings song most closely associated with Billie Holiday. "Long Wharf" is the third Haynes original. Van Gelder's engineering is a substantial part of why the record has the reputation it does, particularly on the drums.

This is the 1973 Japanese pressing on Impulse! IMP-88086, manufactured by Toshiba in a gatefold sleeve.