There were so many great jazz pianists in the Sixties that
some of them, like Ronnie Mathews, never got the attention they
deserved. His first album as leader, Doin’ the Thang!, highlights both
his playing and compositional gifts. The first three tunes—The
Thang, Ichi-Ban, and The Orient—all have a pleasingly exotic
sound. The Thang) is a 5/4 blues, Ichi-Ban is derived from a bass warm
up that sounded Oriental to the composer, and The Orient is based on Well,
You Needn’t. In contrast, Let’s Get Down is boppish all the way, and
a nice change at that point in the album. I get the feeling that Mathews put a
lot of thought into his first date—at least the tune sequence seems to
reflect that. Duke Ellington’s Prelude to a Kiss gives Mathews a chance
to play some Tatumesque runs (Tatum was an early influence on him, as he was
for just about every jazz pianist then).
A 25-year-old Freddie Hubbard does some typically bravura
playing on the date—what a talent he was! I’ve admired Charles Davis’s baritone
work since I first heard him on Kenny Dorham’s Jazz Contemporary, and my
esteem only increased when I got into his playing on Illuminations, the great Elvin
Jones-Jimmy Garrison recording on Impulse. He’s typically fine, here, including
on 1239-A, his own composition. Tootie Heath and Eddie Khan provide sound support on drums and bass, respectively. Tootie is still going strong!
Doin’ the Thang! is an excellent recording, available
on a Prestige twofer (Mathews is also the pianist on the other date, led by
Roland Alexander), in those halcyon days before the soulless companies that currently
own this culturally important music stopped releasing their back catalogs and
ceded what market there was to the Andorrans. Comes the revolution…
And here's The Orient.
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