Tommy Flanagan - Lonely Town (1979 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP)

Tommy Flanagan - Lonely Town | Vinyl LP - 1979 Japanese Blue Note (GP 3186, King Record Co. Ltd.)

• A vault session unreleased for twenty years, recorded in New York City on March 10, 1959 and first issued only in Japan in 1979, with no vinyl release anywhere else in the world
• All seven tracks are Leonard Bernstein compositions, drawn from four musicals: On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide and West Side Story, making this one of the most distinctive concept albums in the piano trio canon
• Tommy Flanagan with Elvin Jones and Joe Benjamin, captured just two months before Flanagan played piano on John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, with Jones still a year away from joining Coltrane’s quartet

Lonely Town sat in the vaults for two decades before King Records issued it in Japan in May 1979, and it is one of the quieter revelations in the Blue Note catalogue. The concept alone is unusual: Tommy Flanagan devotes an entire session to the theatre music of Leonard Bernstein, drawing from On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956) and the then-recent West Side Story (1957). “America” opens proceedings with rhythmic bite, and from there the trio works through ballads, show tunes and Bernstein’s more searching compositions with the kind of harmonic intelligence that made Flanagan one of the most sought-after pianists in New York. “Glitter and Be Gay”, originally a coloratura soprano showpiece from Candide, becomes something entirely different under Flanagan’s hands. Joe Benjamin moves between plucked and bowed bass across the programme, and the closing “Make Our Garden Grow” finds the trio at their most spacious.

The session was recorded on March 10, 1959, which places it squarely in one of the most concentrated periods of Flanagan’s studio career. Within weeks he would record Giant Steps with John Coltrane, and earlier that year he had appeared on sessions for Kenny Dorham and Benny Golson. Elvin Jones, at 31, had not yet joined Coltrane’s group, and his playing here is more restrained than the rolling thunder he would later become known for. Why the session went unreleased is unclear. The producer, Kenneth Karp, was not a Blue Note regular, and the album may originally have been intended for the United Artists catalogue (Blue Note was a division of United Artists by the time this appeared). Whatever the reason, Japan was the only market that received it, and this 1979 pressing on King Record Co. Ltd. remains the sole vinyl edition. A CD reissue followed in 2004. This is the original Japanese pressing, catalogue number GP 3186.