Creed Taylor Produced

On this day, December 13th, 1970 – Herbie Mann was at the “Both/And” club in San Francisco. The nightclub focused on jazz at 350 Divisadero Street, with the neighboring Harding Theater ^[1]https://hoodline.com/2014/06/the-lost-jazz-clubs-of-divisadero/. They had been home to the Tina Turner Revue and Miles Davis. In early 1971, both Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard would appear in the club.

Herbie Mann and his sidemen had been recording at Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ over the summer. The last session for his “Glory of Love” A&M/CTI album was on October 6th, 1967 ^[2]https://www.dougpayne.com/ctid3k.htm#gloryoflove. The session included Herbie Mann (f, arr, cond); Sonny Sharrock (g); Earl May (b); Grady Tate (d); Roy Ayers (vib); Ray Barretto (perc).

Between that session and the album’s release in mid-November 1967, Herbie Mann flew to Europe for a three-day jazz festival “Newport In Europe” at the concert hall “De Doelen” in Rotterdam. Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Mann, Sarah Vaughan, and many other famous jazz artists gave a series of concerts for an enthusiastic audience, as reported in the November 18th issue of Cash Box magazine. ^[3]For reference purposes, it’s worth noting that Downbeat didn’t cover the album and carried no news about Herbie Mann from June through the end of the year, except for performance … Continue reading

The album was released in late November 1967, here is an advert from A&M that appeared in Billboard December 2nd, 1967 issue.

“The album was reviewed in the December 23rd issue: Under a special deal, Herbie Mann, Atlantic artist, recorded one album for A&M. The package is an excellent cross section of the performer’s talents, with his flute interpretations ranging from highly commercial of “The Letter,” the title tune “Unchain My Heart” and ‘House of the Rising Sun” to his stylized “Upa Neguinho” and “Love Is Stronger Than We.” While all the songs are done well, the latter group is the best” (“The Letter” and “Love Is Stronger Than We” came from the October 26th Van Gelder session.))

In the jazz charts February 3rd, 1968, Billboard “Glory Of Love” was at #13, with 6 albums produced by Creed Taylor in the top 20, including Wes Montgomery’s “A Day In The Life” (A&M/CTI) at #1 and Jimmy Smith’s “Respect” (Verve) at #2. There is no doubt that Mann and the quintet would have been performing numbers from the album at the Both/And Club.

KQED regularly broadcast performances from the Both/And Club on TV and Radio. In 1970, shows included Lee Morgan, Freddie Robinson, Joe Henderson, Yusef Lateef and many others ^[4]I plan to reach out to KQED and see what they have in their archives, I’d love to find a radio or TV recording of the Herbie Mann show at the Both/And – my normal source only has concerts … Continue reading. Many of these have been subsequentially commercially released ^[5]https://www.discogs.com/label/492960-The-BothAnd-Club.

Elwood regularly wrote about performances, album reviews and the general jazz scene for the San Francisco Examiner. Philip “Phil” Elwood was born on March 19, 1926 in Berkeley, where his father was a professor of agriculture at the University of California.

Phil’s passion for jazz began in his teenage years when he was introduced to the genre by photographer Dorothea Lange. This love of jazz led him to a prominent career in radio and print journalism, where he hosted the Jazz Archives series on KPFA from 1952 to 1996, becoming one of the first FM jazz broadcasters. He documented the “San Francisco Style” of early jazz, and in 1965, he became an entertainment critic for the San Francisco Examiner, covering various music genres in the Bay Area. He later worked for the San Francisco Chronicle after 2000. Phil passed away in 2006 ^[6]https://exhibits.stanford.edu/sftjf/about/phil-elwood.

Here is Philip Elwood’s December 13th, 1967 article from the San Francisco Examiner. The article is reproduced in full as accurately as I could. It may contain transcription or punctuation errors not found in the original. No other changes or corrections have been made. I have noted errors that are found in the original.

If all the fans who regularly complain there is no new jazz action in town would turn off their hi-fis’ and get down to the Both/And they will find there is no need for tears in their beers: Herbie Mann has got a wailing whale of a quintet on the bandstand for a week’s gig.

Mann has consistently outsmarted the cynics over the years who could see little future for a flute-led jazz group.

He has had small combos and bigger bands; he plays all kinds of music from Donovan to down-home blues, from ballads to bossa nova; he has been a smashing success in jazz festival appearances and world tours, and is a fixture in the New York nightclub and recording scene.

His current quintet is exciting. versatile, musicianly, and like its leader, consistent and alert.

Mann is as glib on his flute as he is in conversation or as a host. By using the beauty of the instrument for its intended melodic contribution and his impeccable technique and jazz feeling to bend notes and roughen the timbre when pertinent, Mann gets into things no other jazz flautist can attempt, or accomplish.

LEADERSHIP

And yet it is Mann’s leadership which makes his performance most impressive. He works with his colleagues easily, gives them plenty of solo space, paces the performance to provide a broad sweeping sample of his musical world, and the audience digs it all.

Vibraharpist Roy Ayers, with lots of notes and syncopation. provides the liaison between rhythm and melody within the band and by himself is a whirlwind of logically developed. multi-mallet expressions.

The group’s drummer, Bruno Carr, is remarkably restrained ; by underplaying his percussive role, it seems to me, his punctuations were most effectively emphasized, and his brush work is perfectly marvelous.

STRONG GUITAR

Most pyrotechnic individualist in the Mann quintet is the blues-based guitarist Sunny Sharock (Ed: Sonny Sharock) who has a wild, brassy tone and buzzing-bee style of electronic outbursts which, if not particularly varied, are certainly memorable.

His fellow string-performer, bassist Mirislav Vitous (ed: Miroslav Vitous), is one of the most impressive pizzicato technicians I’ve heard in jazz. He reminds me of the late Oscar Pettiford’s work, and uses a great deal of upper-range notation comparable to a cellist.