Brother Jack McDuff: Hot Barbeque [BGP]

Why you'll love it

This BGP reissue was cut with direct metal mastering. Recorded in New York in October 1965, it catches McDuff's organ quartet with a young George Benson, Red Holloway and Joe Dukes at full cook.

This edition

• Direct metal mastering

About the album

Plenty of organ combos worked the circuit in the 1960s, but few had George Benson on guitar before anyone knew the name. Eugene McDuffy from Champaign, Illinois started on bass, switched to organ with encouragement from Willis Jackson, and by the mid-1960s was leading one of Prestige's busiest groups, giving Benson his first break along the way. His biggest hit, Rock Candy, came from a 1963 live album with Holloway and Benson in the band, and after Prestige he moved on to Atlantic and later Blue Note.

Peter Paul produced the session on October 19, 1965, and Prestige issued it the next year. McDuff wrote most of the tunes: the strutting title track, "Briar Patch," "Hippy Dip," "601½ North Poplar" and "The Three Day Thang," with Holloway's tenor and Benson's guitar trading choruses over Dukes' easy swing. Two covers, "The Party's Over" and "Cry Me A River," slow things down to a simmer, and AllMusic called the result high-spirited.

The whole album runs a tidy 32 minutes, roughly the time it takes a proper barbecue to get going and nowhere near the time it takes to finish one.

Also at Kops: more Brother Jack McDuff on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On BGP (cat# BGPD 1054), a reissue of the 1966 album.