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CD Review: Eddie Landsberg- Remembering Eddie Jefferson

Label: Berghem Records 2000
Personnel: Eddie Landsberg-Hammond B-3 organ, Giacomo Gates-vocals, James Spaulding-alto sax/ flute, Randy Johnston & Coleman Mellett-guitar, Ben Dixon-drums Special guests: Yvonne Kaufman, Charlie X, Patrick O’Shea

Along with lawyers, brotherly love, and cream cheese, Philadelphia is a city that has produced most of the great Hammond B-3 players in jazz. Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, Big John Patton, Bill Dogget, Groove Holmes, Charles Earland, Jimmy McGriff, and Joey DeFrancesco all have associations with Philly. Small wonder then, that Philadelphian Eddie Landsberg should have been bitten by the B-3 bug after his intro to music on piano. Lessons with Shirley Scott and Big John Patton followed, as well as a consuming interest in jazz organ lore.

Only in his early thirties as of this writing, Landsberg is playing jazz organ with maturity and unadulterated swing. His style is devoid of the swirls and flourishes associated with Jimmy Smith and more recently with Joey DeFrancesco. Smith, of course, is the prototype for jazz organ, and DeFrancesco was instrumental in reviving popular interest in the old stand-by following the synthesizer years of the seventies and eighties.

In choosing a tribute to Eddie Jefferson as the theme for his debut recording, Landsberg couldn’t have made a better decision than to recruit Giacomo Gates as vocalist. Gates has been paying his own tribute to Eddie Jefferson’s music since his debut CD Blue Skies on DMP a few years ago. Gates brings a rich vocal presence and a deep sense of jazz history to every performance. A high point on this disc for me is Gates’ rendition of I Just Got Back in Town, Jefferson’s lyric on I Cover the Waterfront, in which his delivery is so swinging that I can imagine him doing it a capella and pulling it off with ease. Gates contributes a lyric of his own on the challenging opener Mr. Jefferson.

Journeymen James Spaulding on alto and flute, plus Ben Dixon on drums add maturity and focus to this offering, and there is masterful guitar work by both Johnston and Mellett. Drummer Dixon, a veteran of many fine organ driven ensembles, co-produced this excellent first endeavor with Landsberg, This is a fine tribute to a founding father of vocalese and to the Hammond B-3 jazz tradition.

- Richard Mayer

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