Dizzy Gillespie – Dizzy Gillespie’s Big 4

Four musicians, room to respond

Los Angeles, September 1974: Dizzy Gillespie brings together Joe Pass, Ray Brown and Mickey Roker for Dizzy Gillespie’s Big 4. Trumpet, guitar, double bass and drums are the entire ensemble. With no piano, Pass has room to supply chords and pursue his own lines, while the four voices retain space to answer one another. Norman Granz produces the sessions for Pablo; the album follows in 1975.

These musicians arrive with shared experience. Brown played in Gillespie’s band from 1946 to 1951, and Roker belongs to the trumpeter’s quintet in 1974. Pass and Brown have also recently recorded together for Pablo. Those connections make this quartet more than a collection of celebrated names.

Joe Pass, Ray Brown and Mickey Roker

The instrumentation offers a rewarding way to follow the relationship between accompaniment and improvisation. Guitar can establish the harmony and then become a solo voice. Brown’s bass and Roker’s drums contribute two further musical perspectives. Try following one partner through a passage before returning your attention to the whole quartet.

Gillespie is 56 at the time of these sessions. His programme stretches from his own compositions to Broadway songs. For listeners who primarily know him as a pioneer of bebop, this small ensemble offers an inviting way into the breadth of his repertoire.

From “Tanga” to a waltz

The LP opens with Gillespie’s “Tanga”, subsequently retitled “Frelimo” on OJC editions. This release retains “Tanga”. “Be Bop (Dizzy’s Fingers)” and “Birks Works” bring further original compositions alongside Irving Berlin’s “Russian Lullaby” and “September Song” by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson.

Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz” closes the programme. The selection encourages attention to different forms and movements: a waltz, a blues, a concise song interpretation. Across seven tracks, these four musicians approach familiar melodies from a variety of angles.

Analogue Productions AAPJ 158

This Pablo reissue is a single 180-gram LP running at 33⅓ RPM, pressed at Quality Record Pressings and housed in a Stoughton tip-on jacket. Mastering is credited to Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab, with the original analogue master tape identified as the source by the label.

The release uses the cut from an earlier Analogue Productions edition: its runouts still carry the number AAPJ-024. It is therefore a new pressing using existing metal parts. That specific provenance is part of understanding the edition, alongside the musical partnership preserved on the record.

You order from Michael 45 in Germany. We arrange the US import and ship from Hilden.

Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Series: Pablo – all 30 records, musicians and the session book

Musicians

Participants and documented credit status. Track references correspond to the tracklist.

• Dizzy GillespietrumpetParticipation: Album personnel
• Joe PassguitarParticipation: Album personnel
• Ray Browndouble bassParticipation: Album personnel
• Mickey RokerdrumsParticipation: Album personnel

Personnel: Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Joe Pass (guitar), Ray Brown (double bass), Mickey Roker (drums) — all seven tracks. Recorded September 1974 in Los Angeles (jacket: September 19, 1974; discography: September 17 and 19, 1974). Producer: Norman Granz. Liner notes: Benny Green. Photo: Phil Stern. This edition: mastered by Doug Sax (The Mastering Lab), pressed from metal parts of the earlier Analogue Productions edition AAPJ 024 at Quality Record Pressings; jacket by Stoughton Printing. Compositions: Dizzy Gillespie (A1, B1, B2), Meyer/Emmerich/Bernier (A2), Irving Berlin (A3), Kurt Weill/Maxwell Anderson (B3), Fats Waller (B4). Recording engineer not credited on the original release.