LOU
MACCONNELL - REACHING FOR IT
LP
High Energy MD 0044 – BELGIUM, 1979
I collect LP by
or featuring Michel Herr. I’ve known and appreciated his music since
the early days of Solis Lacus. IMHO Michel Herr is one of Belgium’s greatest
jazzmen, talented pianist, inspired composer and gifted arranger. I was therefore quite pleased to find this
album a the S&H Record Fair (Brussels) last Saturday.
I did not know what to expect exactly but considering the names in the band, I
was not taking much of a risk.
I write "did not know what to expect" because I had absolutely no idea who Lou MacConnell is or was and could not find any useful
info on the Net.
He played as a
sideman on another rare LP, this time by guitarist Jan Doveren, featuring also Michel Herr on piano and on two Chet Baker albums. These are the only recorded traces of
this talented saxophonist / flautist.
Reaching for It is an impressive album, it just blew me when I first heard it. It starts with a deep version of Naima
followed by a breezy version of Jobim’s O Grande Amor with Macconnell on flute and beautiful Fender
Rhodes courtesy of Michel Herr. Side A ends with a good rendition of Easy
Living featuring again Macconnell on tenor and Herr on acoustic piano.
Side B starts
with Miles’ Four followed by the “piece de resistance”- Coltrane’s Like Sonny. Side B ends on a lighter note with Horace
Siver’s Gringo with Michel Herr back at the Fender Rhodes. It’s
incredible that such a record could remain completely unknown. If ever there was a jazz record in need of immediate
reissue, here it is.
If little is
known about Lou MacConnell, it is not the case with his sidemen. In addition to Michel Herr on piano (acoustic anf fender Rhodes), we have hard bop
veteran Wilbur Little on bass (he
was living in Amsterdam since 1977) and Vinnie
Johnson on drums. Johnson was a.o.
the drummer on Stanton Davis’ Ghetto Mysticism and a member of Bill Frisell Triode with Kermit Driscoll (see the post on Good
Friends, with Michel Herr also).
You can’t go wrong with a band like that!
Tracks :
1. Naima (John Coltrane)
2. O grande amor (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
3. Easy living (Rainger / Robin)
4. Four (Miles Davis)
5. Like Sonny (John Coltrane)
6. Gringo (Horace Silver)
Musicians :
Lou MacConnell - tenor saxophone, flute
Michel Herr - piano
Wilbur Little - double bass
Vinnie Johnson - drums
Recorded in July 1979 at Michel
Dickenscheid's studio, Ougrée (B). Released in 1979 (MD 0044).
If that ain’t a lost treasure of European
Deep / Spiritual Jazz, then I don’t know how to call it.
