Leonard Feather opens the original notes with a joke: so much talent was coming out of Detroit that Blue Note might one day have to move there. Curtis Fuller was part of the reason. Born in Detroit in December 1934, he met J.J. Johnson as a boy, before he had ever played trombone. In the Army at Fort Knox, his sergeant, Cannonball Adderley, talked him into sticking with it. He reached New York in April 1957 with Yusef Lateef, had a couple of nights with Miles Davis at the Bohemia and a few weeks in Dizzy Gillespie's big band, and then started making records.
He made a lot of them, fast. His first Blue Note album was cut in June. On August 3 he, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor were at Van Gelder's in Hackensack for Bud Powell. The next day, Sunday, August 4, 1957, they were back for this one, with Sonny Clark on piano and another Detroit friend, Tate Houston, on baritone. Alfred Lion produced. Six tunes were taped, and all six made the record.
The pairing was the point. Fuller had spent almost a year playing beside Pepper Adams's baritone in Detroit, and he told Feather he liked the blend:
it's deeper and fuller than trombone and tenor, of course,
Curtis Fuller, in Leonard Feather's original liner notes
Side one is all Fuller's writing. "Algonquin" is a minor-key blues. "Nita's Waltz" came to him on the subway with Lion, coming home from a visit to Bud Powell's, and grew from a German folk tune he remembered from childhood; Clark, Fuller and Chambers solo. The title tune started when Fuller heard Eddie Fisher sing "Count Your Blessings" on television.
Side two splits the band. "Heart and Soul," Hoagy Carmichael's tune, is Fuller with the rhythm section. "Again" is the reverse: Houston's feature, a song Fuller had wanted him to record ever since hearing him play it in Detroit.
Tate has always been hidden in one band or another
Curtis Fuller, in Leonard Feather's original liner notes
The closer, "Pickup," is a fast blues. Houston goes first, and Feather calls Fuller's solo that follows dazzling.
The sleeve was designed by Tom Hannan, with a photograph by Francis Wolff. The record came out in early January 1958, which is why Wikipedia gives that year while the Jazz Discography Project files it under 1957.
It is Houston's only Blue Note date in our listings. Three weeks later Fuller was back at Van Gelder's, playing trombone for Lee Morgan.
