This one's from Chris (Wazoo) - an English hard-bop album? From the 1980s? And on Stiff Records?? Who'd have thunk it?
Tommy Chase - 'Groove Merchant' (1987)
I wasn't sure whether to have this album as I don't expect any or many AoS members will own it and it's a little tricky to get hold of. However, it is on Spotify, so we'll go with it shall we?
My exposure to jazz in childhood was limited to three albums from my parents' collection of mostly classical records: Brubeck, The Modern Jazz Quartet and Errol Garner. Then, in my teens when I was immersing myself in rock & blues, I discovered Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and Art Blakey.
I went to a few gigs, but was always disappointed because I was never able to find this particular type of jazz. 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-scooba-dooby-shooby-doo’....whatever one of those is.
I was beginning to think that I was wasting my time....until I went to a gig by 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. And LOUD!
I had to have more of this!
‘Groove Merchant’ is one of those rare studio 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 Merlot, 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. It swings like hell but this is not a big band record. The track is 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 staid and pedestrian. Even a faithful cover of Art Blakey with ‘So Tired’ is somehow much more propulsive than the version by the drumming legend who Chase is often compared to.
This album really is special and I actually prefer it to many of my treasured Blue Notes. Sadly, it's been only 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, Amazon Marketplace usually has a few copies of the CD, but it's pricey - often up to £50. A good used vinyl copy can usually be found on Ebay or Discogs for under a tenner, though. And of course, it's also available on Spotify.
A few tracks are to be found on YouTube: