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Cedar Walton One Flight Down
J.J. Johnson
trombone1924 - 2001
Art Blakey
drums1919 - 1990
Art Farmer
flugelhorn1928 - 1999
Benny Golson
saxophone, tenor1929 - 2024
Tommy Flanagan
piano1930 - 2001
Mal Waldron
piano1925 - 2002
Roland Hanna
piano1932 - 2002
Dodo Marmarosa
piano1925 - 2002
Russ Freeman
piano1926 - 2002
Frank Hewitt
piano1935 - 2002
John Hicks
piano1941 - 2006
Producer Bob Porter once said of
Cedar Walton
piano1934 - 2013
Kenny Dorham
trumpet1924 - 1972
Lucky Thompson
saxophone1924 - 2005
Joe Henderson
saxophone1937 - 2001
Charles Lloyd
saxophoneb.1938
Pat Martino
guitar1944 - 2021
Walton is important not just because his résumé includes J. J. and the Messengers and the Jazztet, but because he is now, at 72, playing the most piano of his life. Anyone who doubts this claim is directed to the Billy Strayhorn medley herein, tracks 3, 4, and 5. Walton recorded "Lush Life," "Daydream," and "Raincheck" once before, on Lush Life, for the Discovery label, in 1988. The earlier versions are graceful and lightly swinging, employing modest key signature and rhythmic updates. They frankly pale in comparison to the encounters with these songs here, which are edgier, more complex, freer, and much harder. Walton can legitimately make the same claim as the protagonist of Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages": "Ah but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now."
There is no obvious reason why the two tunes that open the album, "One Flight Down" (a hard-bop anthem with an irresistible hook) and "The Rubber Man" (with its witty, piquant melodicism) are not as famous as some of Walton's other original classics, like "Bolivia" and "Mosaic." They are the two tracks on which
Vincent Herring
saxophone, altob.1964
It is rare for an album to lose a hot tenor saxophonist and become a piano trio date and immediately escalate in intensity. It happens here. That Strayhorn medley comes next, and it is the centerpiece and tour de force of the album. If "Lush Life" and "Daydream" are not always ballads, they are almost always vehicles for an existential encounter with loss and wistful yearning, respectively. But Walton's mood on this session, while it may countenance contemplation, is the furthest thing from pensive. He goes after these songs with take-no-prisoners aggression. The poetry of Strayhorn's "Lush Life," with its melodic lines that unpredictably extend or attenuate and its lovely harmonic turns, is only implicit in Walton's steely sculpture. Walton's touch on the keyboard has always been firm, but here it is ferociously percussive as if driven by a fervent inner pressure to communicate. (Yet even when he plays this hard, he does not hammer. He articulates and shapes each note's expression.) This "Daydream" is not in the least dreamy. "Raincheck" pops and snaps.
Walton does not generate all this energy by himself. His bassist,
David Williams
bassb.1946
Sam Jones
bass, acoustic1924 - 1981
Ron Carter
bassb.1937
Joe Farnsworth
drumsb.1968
Ron Carter
bassb.1937
Billy Higgins
drums1936 - 2001
Don Sickler, producer of this session, makes a similar point about Farnsworth: "He is in demand because he is not one-dimensional. Drummers as flexible as Farnsworth are few and far between." Farnsworth, that is, possesses a sense of what a given musical situation requires, and he correctly perceives that what this album calls for is urgency. It is fascinating to compare his brushwork on "Raincheck" to that of Billy Higgins on Walton's 1988 Discovery album. Farnsworth is a major reason why the 2006 version sounds like "Raincheck" on steroids.
Three of the tracks were composed by people who played important roles in Walton's musical life. "Little Sunflower," with its minimal chord movement but its maximal modal funk, is by
Freddie Hubbard
trumpet1938 - 2008
Wayne Shorter
saxophone1933 - 2023
Both
Don Sickler
trumpetb.1944
Walton says, "One thing that helps is that these tunes have been worked. They've been played... I hate to say all over the world but it happens to be true." It is yet another paradoxical dynamic of the in-the-moment art form called jazz. The trio is able to make this music sound so new because, for them, most of it is old.
"Time After Time" happens to be 60 years old, and Walton and his band act like they don't know it's a ballad. Walton says he was playing a gig with David "Fathead" Newman a couple of years ago when Newman called the song. "When he counted it off at that tempo, I was just so delighted I never got it out of my mind." Walton simply kills "Time After Time." Jazz from such a classic tributary only flows naturally from players who are tapped into the stream at the source.
The thesis of these notes is that One Flight Down is a uniquely concentrated and valuable repository of the art of Cedar Walton, and this argument must not be concluded without mentioning another artist who is not getting older but better: engineer Rudy Van Gelder. He is now doing the best work of his distinguished career. He says, "This album is quite unique. It took me a while to catch on to what Cedar had in mind. He played differently than I've ever heard him play before. I think it's quite spectacular. I think I was able to help it along a little bit and make sure the CD sounded the way that Cedar intended."
"Help it along" he did. The visceral excitement that this album generates is not separable from its incisive, dynamic recorded sound. Van Gelder responds to Walton's intensity with intensity of his own, and he gets it all: the passion in Walton's fingers, the ferocious snap (and deepest overtones) of Williams' bass, the electric energy sparking from Joe Farnsworth's ride cymbal.
Liner Notes copyright ? 2025 Thomas Conrad.
One Flight Down can be purchased here.
Contact Thomas Conrad at All About Jazz.
Thomas travels frequently writing about jazz outside the borders of the United States.
Track Listing
One Flight Down; The Rubber Man; Lush Life; Daydream; Raincheck; Seven Minds; Time After Time; Hammer Head; Little Sunflower.
Personnel
Album information
Title: One Flight Down | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: HighNote Records
Tags
Liner Notes
Thomas Conrad
One Flight Down
HighNote Records
Cedar Walton
J. J. Johnson
Art Blakey
Art Farmer
benny golson
Tommy Flanagan
Mal Waldron
Roland Hanna
Dodo Marmarosa
Russ Freeman
Frank Hewitt
John Hicks
Kenny Dorham
Lucky Thompson
Joe Henderson
charles lloyd
Pat Martino
Vincent Herring
David Williams
Sam Jones
Ron Carter
Joe Farnsworth
Billy Higgins
Freddie Hubbard
Wayne Shorter
Don Sickler
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