Duke Pearson, Sweet Honey Bee

Every old record fanatic loves an unsung hero, an artist who put out seriously good work without ever quite getting the recognition they deserved.

That brings me to my favorite solo platter from triple-threat pianist/arranger/composer Duke Pearson. Sweet Honey Bee has everything you want from a 1960s Blue Note record — tasty hard bop, Mod era soul jazz, exquisite balladry, and sidemen who are all solo stars in their own right.

Even if you don’t think you know Duke Pearson odds are you have heard him on a number of your favorite Blue Note albums. The two Pearson compositions that most jazz fans should know he cut with his friend Donald Byrd. “Jeanine” is an upbeat swinger that also features Jackie McLean on sax. The regal spiritual “Cristo Redentor” was, kind of amazingly, a jukebox and radio hit back in the day — Pearson not only wrote the number but he also arranged it and produced the session it appeared on.

Duke Pearson most probably came to Blue Note’s attention when he was part of Donald Byrd’s band. He was known as an all-around great guy, well-liked, knowledgeable, and respected — he never lost his cool. Pearson’s laid back professionalism was noticed by the Blue Note heads. In 1963 Pearson was chosen as the jazz label’s new producer, musical director, and A&R man. He did everything from sign new talent, think up album ideas and concepts for artists, and work directly in the studio. Duke Pearson was a big part of helping Blue Note find the perfect 1960s balance of gritty hard-bop, intellectual post-bop, and funky, juke-joint soul jazz.

As a leader of his own groups, Duke Pearson can be likened to Horace Silver and the more mainstream side of 1960s Herbie Hancock. Pearson’s piano laying was always lean (think Silver, Bobby Timmons, and Gene Harris)  and his songwriting was melodic and direct. He sounded very nice in trio settings but was even better in larger ensembles because they way his compatriots fit together was more important than his piano solos. Unlike Silver and Hancock, however, Pearson had more success as a producer, arranger, writer, and sideman then as a bandleader recording under his own name.

Here are some of the fine Blue Note platters that Duke Pearson arranged, played on, and helped produce:

Art

This is another nifty Blue Note cover. Unlike many of the sleeves lensed by label honcho Francis Wolff this one isn’t a black & white shot of the artist in the studio. That said, a fair amount of Blue Note covers were in color, staged out of the studio, and took place in the great outdoors.

It can be strange how colors can change in the printing process.  My version of this LP is on the grayish brown side but there are a number of LPs I have seen that are blue — blue for a sky is better than a we-need-to-start-the-EPA khaki. I assumed it was a paid model that Pearson is goofily lurking behind but it was his fiancee at the time of recording; I have no idea if they ended up getting married or not but I hope so. 1966 was a banner year in music but it was also a top year in fashion, especially bee-like skirt-wear.

Music

Even with a music biz office job Duke Pearson still played around New York City in the mid 1960s. I am not sure if Sweet Honey Bee captures Pearson’s working band or if it was put together specifically for this recording (I am guessing its the latter). His old friend Donald Byrd was probably out on the road leading his own band so his trumpet part is filled by Freddy Hubbard. I haven’t yet wrote up an LP where Hubbard is the leader yet but he does appear on this Impulse masterpiece that is an all-time favorite as well as this fine 1970s CTI session (CTI being the label where Hubbard found his greatest popular success). The rest of the musicians heard here are equally impressive —  the truly amazing Joe Henderson on tenor, James Spaulding on alto and flute, the underrated Mickey Roker on drums, and Ron Carter on bass (Carter easily appears on more than half of the jazz LPs I have spotlighted here).

“Sweet Honey Bee” was written for the nice lady on the album cover. Its a goofy soul jazz ditty that comes off somewhere between a 1960s instrumental hit and an old advertising jingle. Pearson is surrounded by amazing soloists but his own piano work steals the show. “Sudel” is a lot more adventurous and features Hubbard and Henderson right out of the gate. you can’t ask for a better rhythm section behind them — Pearson’s comping is just right. “After The Rain” is a gorgeous, melancholy ballad that may have given Michel Legrand some ideas when he would go on to write the Summer of ’42 movie theme in the early ’70s. “After The Rain” is all Pearson, Spaulding’s flute, and Roker’s drums, which play like gentle thunder in the distance. Joe Henderson’s exquisite playing turns the mid-tempo hard-bopper “Gaslight” into a real beauty. Hubbard is equally gentle when he comes in.

“Big Bertha” starts the flip side in a joyous manner, ramping up from a jaunty trio number to a full band set with a killer horn chart. “Empathy” has an extended, gliding melody that suits Spaulding’s flute like a glove. Hubbard, again, shows how gently he can play when he wants to and Joe Henderson makes every bar sing. With Roker’s complex drum work this feels more like something from one of Herbie Hancock’s sophisticated Blue Note sets — Pearson’s interest in a strong central melody constructs mainstream jazz out of the DNA of more experimental post-bop. “Ready Rudy” is a tribute to sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who recorded this album as well as most sets for Blue Note, Impulse, and CTI Records. Pearson noticed that at every Van Gelder session he participated in the band leader would shout out “Ready, Rudy!” in the studio. This is the most jam session-y tune on the LP, with short but completely on-target solos from every band member.

Sweet Honey Bee doesn’t quite rise to the level of beyond greatness of the all time best Blue Note albums but it is a damn good LP — and “damn good” is actually the sweet jazz spot Blue Note specialized in reaching. Damn good is what I’d give to just about every Jimmy smith and Art Blakey session, for instance. Its hard to think of another label with such a stellar track record of damn good records. One of Sweet Honey Bee‘s finer points is that the solos may be short on some of the tracks but every single note played is just the right one — there is no time for anyone to noodle around searching for the instrumental Veedon Fleece (which Freddie Hubbard, a genius on the trumpet, can do).

Sweet Honey Bee was not a jazz hit when it came out. None of Duke Pearson’s LPs really were — which is probably why every single one of them was out-of-print until the 2000s. But, I’d recommend all of the ones that came out during the 1960s. For those who like the tougher bop sides of Sweet Honey Bee I’d highly recommend the album that came just before this one — Wahoo! — as well as the one that came next — The Phantom —  an adventurous Latin-ate post-bop set with Bobby Hutcherson on vibes. The Phantom came out in 1968, the year Pearson released two other LP’s for Blue Note. The Right Touch shows off his skills arranging an octet in a Birth of the Cool/Gerry Mulligan style that puts Blue Note heat into a format that recalls the Cool jazz era while Introducing Duke Pearson’s Big Band leads the way to the reborn modernist large ensemble sound of the 1970s.

Starting in the late 1960s Duke Pearson started organizing weekly big band nights in New York City. He’d write the charts and gather an amazing array of star talent would make up the band. Nobody did it for the money — they band couldn’t even afford to rehearse. They’d play once a week, on a school night, rating extended residencies at The Village Vanguard and The Half Note. Film historian, movie reviewer, and secret cool cat Leonard Maltin was a big fan of the weekly event, as you can read here.

Sadly, leading this big band would be the final stage in Duke Pearson’s career.

Duke Pearson’s was part of Donald Byrd’s hit Electric Byrd Blue Note LP but his office job at the label ended in 1971 with Francis Wolff’s death. I am guessing that quickly progressing multiple sclerosis led to Pearson becoming a college professor and leading his weekly big band. More women seem to get MS but in men it progresses much more quickly and losing the ability to play the piano was only the first of many freedoms taken away from the musician. When Pearson needed around the clock care he had to go back home to Atlanta to get help from his family. He died there in a veteran’s hospital, aged 48, in 1980.

I have dozens, probably hundreds, of Blue Note records. I had no idea that Duke Pearson was such a large part of the Blue Note story and such a large part of the labels success in the 1960s.

— Nick Dedina