Description
Don Wilkerson – Preach Brother! – 180 Gram Vinyl Record
Don Wilkerson brings a strong rhythm-and-blues personality to Preach Brother!, a 1962 Blue Note session built entirely from his own compositions. The Louisiana-born tenor saxophonist had played with Ray Charles during the 1950s, and that experience helps explain the directness of his approach here. His saxophone can suggest a vocal shout, a blues statement or a more extended jazz line without making those elements feel disconnected. The album’s six pieces move through different rhythmic settings, with Grant Green’s guitar and Sonny Clark’s piano adding two distinct voices around the tenor. It is a small-group record whose character comes from the intersection of blues feeling and modern-jazz musicianship.
Recorded at Van Gelder Studio on June 18, 1962, the session also features Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. Green and Clark make an especially attractive pairing: guitar and piano can each support Wilkerson while retaining their own melodic and rhythmic identities. The presence of both instruments gives the group more possibilities than a saxophone-led quartet, without adding another horn to the front line. Warren and Higgins supply the foundation for that conversation, allowing the music to remain clear even when the tenor becomes more emphatic. Wilkerson’s leadership is apparent in the choice of material, which gives the players a common blues-oriented language and several different ways to use it.
Jeanie-Weenie opens with the energy of jump blues, setting up the more relaxed Homesick Blues before Dem Tambourines closes the first side. That change of pace brings out an important aspect of Wilkerson’s playing. The same substantial tenor sound that carries an energetic number can also make a slower phrase feel expressive and complete. Dem Tambourines adds a church-influenced rhythmic character, with tambourine contributing to the session’s percussive color. The first side consequently offers more than a single kind of soul-jazz groove. Its three selections show how Wilkerson’s blues vocabulary can work in an animated opener, a slower setting and a piece with a stronger communal, gospel-related feel.
Camp Meetin’ opens the second side and extends that gospel connection, followed by The Eldorado Shuffle and the longer Pigeon Peas. The Eldorado Shuffle is a particularly appealing place to hear the relationship between tenor and guitar, with Green providing a different attack and tonal color from Wilkerson’s horn. That contrast is one of the album’s recurring pleasures: the saxophone’s fuller sound and the guitar’s sharply defined notes can make a phrase register differently even within the same musical setting. Clark adds another layer through the piano, giving the session a broader conversation than the leader and guitarist alone. The closing performance leaves substantial room for the group’s shared rhythmic instincts.
Preach Brother! offers a useful introduction to Wilkerson as both a tenor player and a writer. The program consists of six originals, so the album’s identity is not dependent on a familiar standard or a contemporary hit adapted for jazz. Instead, it reflects his own choice of blues forms, themes and rhythmic situations. Green, Clark, Warren and Higgins give those ideas an ensemble with considerable individual character, while the tambourine passages make the gospel influence more tangible. This stereo Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series reissue is mastered all-analog by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Optimal. It presents the original six-track LP, three selections on each side.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
A1. Jeanie-Weenie
A2. Homesick Blues
A3. Dem Tambourines
B1. Camp Meetin’
B2. The Eldorado Shuffle
B3. Pigeon Peas
