TOMMY CHASE – “Groove Merchant and Hard!” Two quality Jazz albums.

Aug 022010

My exposure to jazz in my childhood was limited to Dave Brubeck and the Modern Jazz Quartet playing around the house when I was a kid. But back in the mid 1980’s, when I was immersing myself in rock music and blues, I discovered something new all by myself – Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins and others, through my exposure to a big stack of Blue Note albums.

To me, these timeless records demanded to be listened to, as much for how they were presented as for the quality of the music locked into the grooves. The sleeves were made from thick card and the vinyl was thick too. The cover art and graphics were almost always interesting and relentlessly cool. The sleeve notes, always following the same format and layout, gave a glimpse into a world of smoky clubs and late night recording sessions. The sound quality of the recordings was exemplary and gave a great insight into the interplay between the various musicians through the portrayal of a vivid soundstage and a spookily lifelike rendering of real instruments being played in a real room.

I was hooked, so I went about the business of devouring every recording of this type I could get my hands on. I also went to a few jazz gigs, but always came away disappointed because I was never able to experience anyone playing this type of music. Jazz encompasses a huge spectrum of musical styles – bowler hated clarinettists were just not my thing, and I never have been able to stomach ladies in evening gowns warbling about something called a ’shooby-de-da-dum-dooby-shooby-doo’. I was beginning to think that be-bop and hard bop had drifted away forever like the smoke from Dexter Gordon’s cigarette on one of his album sleeves.

Then I went to a gig by a band going by the name of the Tommy Chase Quartet. Now this was more like it! They seemed to have the attitude of a great rock band – the drummer, Thomas the Chase himself, dominated the stage with a sustained attack on his kit that might have been more at home with Led Zeppelin or The Who. The pianist seemed to be defending himself from a plague of spiders with his feet, stamping manically in front of, behind and to the sides of his stool, in time to the groove that Mr Chase and the bassist were thwacking out. Over all of this, there was a sax player blurting, parping and honking out some of the best sax riffs in a way that I’d never heard live. But they could also play it cool, like Coleman or Dex’ in their most mellow moments.

I had to have more of this!

So I sought out one of their albums, one that has remained a firm favourite ever since – ‘Groove Merchant’. I also learnt that this band were touring regularly and saw them several times again. I even once managed to procure a cassette of one performance – long since lost, which was captured from the mixing desk at a gig in Brighton – my girlfriend persuaded the sound man to make us a copy, which he sent us – good man!

‘Groove Merchant’ is one of those rare albums that really capture a large amount of the essence of the live event and the title is one of the most apt ever because the groove is perhaps one of the most infectious I have ever heard. I never, ever dance, but this album always gets me very, very close to getting up and boogying with the best of them – and I promise you, that is quite some statement! I defy you to keep your feet still while it’s playing. I swear I can even see the family mutt tapping his feet to this one when I play it!

The title track is an old big band number, written by Jerome Richardson and often played by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. But this is not a big band record, even though it swings like hell. It’s a close relative of the theme music from the BBC Film programme – Billy Taylor’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’. Another highlight is a cover of Sonny Rollins’ ‘Alfie’s Theme’, though played with such urgency and feel for rhythm that it makes the original seem a bit like staid. Even a faithful cover of Art Blakey with ‘So Tired’ is somehow much more propulsive than the drummer who Chase is often compared to.

It really is special and I actually prefer it to many of my treasured Blue Notes. Sadly, the album has been sporadically available, but if you ever see a copy, you should snap it up and defend it with your life. If you can cope with mp3’s, I believe it’s available as a download and on Spotify.

A close second runner to ‘Groove Merchant’, this time an album that has been made available again, is called ‘Hard!’ This was recorded in ‘83, but sounds like it could have been a Blue Note release from decades before, whereas the production on ‘Groove Merchant’ has perhaps a bit more zip and (relatively) modern snap and sparkle to it. On both these albums, like the Blue Notes, you can hear in the playing that the band are enjoying themselves and that they are responding to the moment and to each other, rather than just knocking out another track.

If you only ever own five jazz albums in your life, you should seriously think of the following for the first four:
Miles Davis – ‘Kind of Blue’,
Charles Mingus – ‘Mingus Ah Um’,
Dave Brubeck – ‘Take Five’,
Tommy Chase – ‘Groove Merchant’ or if not, then ‘Hard!’
- and one other of your choice (personally, I’d struggle to choose between Dexter Gordon – ‘Go’, John Coltrane – ‘Blue Train’ and Cannonball Adderley – ‘Something Else’)

Tommy Chase – ‘Groove Merchant’ (Stiff Records – SEEZ 66) 1984 Vinyl (no longer available on physical formats)

The Tommy Chase Quartet – ‘Hard!’ (Beat Goes Public – CDBGPM181) Originally issued on vinyl in 1984 on Boplicity

Chris Bennett

Sound Quality 9 out 10 for both albums

Music 10/10 for Groove Merchant – original vinyl

9/10 for Hard! – CD

System used–

Vinyl: Gyro/Zeta/Koetsu Black, Bent Audio Mu/Audio Research SP8, Mark Levinson ML9/ML11, Mirage M3si

CD: Accuphase DP67 direct into Radford STA15, SD Acoustics OBS

Source of Music reviewed….. Reviewer’s own items

NB No part or portion of this article may be reproduced or quoted without written permission.