Keep Your Soul Together

Junior Cook (tenor sax), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), George Cables (electric piano), Kent Brinkley (bass), Ralph Penland (drums) and Juno Lewis (percussion). From the album Keep Your Soul Together (1973).

Junior Cook was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist eclipsed by more innovative contemporary musicians despite being a very good improviser. He began playing the alto saxophone, but then changed to the tenor. His favorites saxophonists were Sonny Stitt, Hank Mobley, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, but instead of imitating them, he found his own way to master the harmony and melody of the hard bop style. He began his career playing with Dizzy Gillespie in 1958 and then became part of the Horace Silver Quintet until 1964, with which he gained some renown. He was also sideman on two albums by Kenny Burrell.

In 1961 he recorded his first album as a leader entitled Junior’s Cookin’, which although relaxed, can still be considered hard bop. After leaving Silver along with Blue Mitchel, he was a member of the latter’s quintet until 1969. He also played with George Coleman, Elvin Jones, Louis Hayes, Clifford Jordan, Freddie Hubbard and McCoy Tyner’s big band. In addition to working as a studio musician, he recorded as a leader for the music companies Jazzland, Catalyst, Muse and SteepleChase. He died in New York in 1992 at the age of 57 years.

The introduction is played by Cook and Hubbard in unison with strange sounds that Cables produces with his electric piano underneath. The theme begins with Brinkley setting the bass line, then the rest of the rhythm section joins in and finally Cook and Hubbard exposes it in unison. The melody is nice and catchy, and the bridge is played by Hubbard supported by Cook in AABA structure. Then Cook enters with a solo that starts out being simple and graceful, but that gradually intensifies until its completely out of control, although later the waters return to their course. Next comes Hubbard presenting a speech that at first is velvety, but then explodes in a thousand fired notes in all directions and after a while calms down. To conclude, the group re-exposes the theme and Hubbard comes back playing a second solo making filigrees and enjoying it until the music is attenuated and reaches the end.