Saturday Night Blues

Stanley Turrentine (tenor sax), Kenny Burrell (electric guitar), Major Holley (double bass), Bill English (drums) and Ray Barretto (congas). From the album Midnight Blue (1963).

Major Holley was an American jazz bassist who started playing the double bass participating in groups while in the navy. During the second half of the 1940s he played with Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon and Ella Fitgerald. In 1950 he recorded several duet albums with Oscar Peterson and also played with Peterson and Charlie Smith in a trio. In the mid-1950s he moved to Ingraterra and worked for the BBC. He then came back to North America and toured with Woody Herman in 1958 and with the Al Cohn and Zoot Simms quintet in 1958 and 1959. He played briefly with Duke Ellington in 1974 and was a sought-after studio musician. Between 1967 and 1970 he taught at Berkley College of Music and then continued to make countless recordings. He died in 1990 at the age of 66.

Bill English is an American drummer. In the 1950s he played in rhythm and blues bands and then became the official drummer of the New York’s Apollo Theater. In the 1960s he played with Quincy Jones, Earl Hines, Eddie Jeferson, Stanley Turrentine, Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell and Joe Newman, and continued to perform during the 1970s with Eric Dixon and others.  After that, unfortunately, he gave up music.

Burrell presents a simple traditional blues and Turrentine plays a thoughtful first chorus. After that, English makes a drumroll and Turrentine enters his second chorus with more expressive phrases telling his sorrows, as always happens in any blues. As the theme progresses, he lights up his speech with pitiful phrases and then has a short dialogue with Burrell. Next comes Burrell, playing a more balanced melodic line, and then talks again with Turrentine until they re-expose the blues, this time with Turrentine, and end up fading out.