Others...including John Hardee, James Clay, Fred Crane, Henry Coker, Paul Guerrero, Pete Petersen, Dennis Gonzalez and Marchel Ivery...are less well known. There's a variety of non-musical reasons for that. Some have been mainly sidemen. Some haven't spent much time outside of Texas or haven't been heard on records with wide distribution, or they have simply been short-changed in the "breaks" department.

Marchel Ivery has worked with and been accepted as a peer by some of the best jazzmen in the world, but circumstances or choice have kept him near home for most of his career, and until now he has not led his own band on a record date. Cedar Walton, a Dallasite who went to New York young and established himself as a major pianist, says, "It's Marchel's time."

A Texas Tenor in Fact and Deed

Ivery is a tenor saxophonist with all of the storied attributes that conjure up a certain attitude and set of stylistic components when the phrase "Texas tenor" is mentioned; big tone, expansive ideas, blues at the core of the conception, a certain swagger in the execution of a solo. In Ivery's case, those elements are leavened by a keen application of the rhythmic and harmonic principles developed by Charlie Parker and personalized by players like Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. They were sharpened by his experiences in Texas and elsewhere with jazz musicians who set the highest standards.

Marchel was born in 1938 in Ennis, 30 miles south of Dallas. At the age of 12, he began playing the trumpet. In his sophomore year at George Washington Carver High School, a radio broadcast gave him his first encounter with Charlie Parker and he switched to the alto saxophone.

"I heard about three notes," he says, "and I had to have an alto. A neighbor down the street, Hardee Weathers, had an alto saxophone and played in the school band, so I hung around him all the time, picking up information, learning things. Eventually, the band leader asked me what it was going to be, alto or trumpet. That was it for the trumpet. Eventually I migrated to the tenor."

In his junior year, Ivery turned professional. Pete Cooley, a trumpeter from Corsicana, watched the youngster make the transition from trumpet to saxophone.

"He was considered the heavyweight of that area," Ivery says. "Everyone thought he could have made the big time, but he never went to New York. On Fridays he used to pass through Ennis and pick me up on the way to his jobs in Dallas. I'd spend the weekend with his band, watching and learning, and he'd let me play. He was a brilliant musician, had a lot of knowledge. He taught me how to control my embrochure and how to finger. He trained my ear. He taught me all the standards, like "Stardust" and "Body and Soul" He was a real influence."

A Defining Moment in Paris

From high school, Ivery joined the Army and ended up in Paris, France in 1958 and '59, when the city had a colony of American musicians. It included some of the most original and important artists in modern jazz, among them Bud Powell, Oscar Pettiford, Lucky Thompson and Kenny Clarke. The 19-year-old tenor man from the Army band spent his off-duty time listening and absorbing. In one of the clubs came a moment that pumped up his confidence and defined his future.

"The Cheque Peche was where all the musicians hung out. Everybody came by there; Duke Ellington, Lee Morgan, Phil Woods, Don Byas, Art Blakey, Donald Byrd. I got to talk with all those people. One night the band was Bud Powell on piano, Lucky Thompson on tenor, Oscar Pettiford was the bassist and G.T. Hogan was playing drums. There was a dispute of some kind between Pettiford and Lucky Thompson, and Lucky packed up his horn and left, even before they had started. On his way out, he saw me in the audience and said, 'Hey, Marchel, you want to play'" I must have said something to the effect that I was afraid to get on the bandstand with Bud Powell, but the owner of the club, Madame Ricardo, overheard us and pushed me up there."

His reception on the stand did not allay his concern. Powell, expressionless, stared at Ivery and didn't say a word. Then, he kicked off a tempo and young Marchel's fears or dreams were about to be realized.

"I think it was 'How High The Moon,'" he remembers. "I kind of felt my way through it. I was frightened to death. I played two or three tunes, and they asked me back the next night. It didn't dawn on me until later on, what I had done. I knew Bud Powell was a great man, but it really didn't hit me until that night that he was a genius. It floored me. I had seen God, so to speak. From that point on, deep down within, I had the feeling I could play."

Out of the Army in 1960 and back in the States, Ivery spent a short time in New York, then returned to Dallas to be with his ailing father. He took jobs in Dallas and on the road with a variety of rhythm and blues bands, backing Bobby Blue Bland, Al "TNT" Braggs, Big Joe Turner, Lightning Hopkins, Little Willie John, Jimmy Reed, Johnnie Taylor and Freddie King, among others.

During the early 1960s, he frequently found himself on call to be the second saxophone in groups put together for Dallas appearances by traveling stars like Sonny Stitt, Hank Crawford and James Moody.

Enter Red Garland

Steeped in the blues and bebop, in 1966 Ivery began playing with Red Garland. Pianist in the Miles Davis quintet that included John Coltrane, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, Garland had come home to Dallas when his mother became ill in 1964. He worked sporadically at clubs like the Arandas, the Rounders and Wellington's. He and Ivery struck a musical friendship that lasted until Garland's death in 1984. Beginning in the fall of 1975, their unofficial headquarters was the Recovery Room, a Dallas club run by Jeannie and Bill Donelly.

After Garland was "rediscovered" at the Recovery Room in the late 1970s, he occasionally took a band to New York, and Ivery was the saxophonist.

"Red's last job was at Lush Life in Greenwich Village in New York City in June of 1983," Ivery says. "The band was: Philly Joe Jones on drums, Larry Ridley on bass, Woody Shaw on trumpet, and me. It was the cookingest week of my life. I'll never forget it."

Marchel says he dedicates this album to the memory of three musicians who were powerful influences, Lucky Thompson, Art Blakey and Garland. Thompson befriended and instructed Ivery in Paris. Blakey hired him as a member of the Jazz Messengers in the early 1980s. He says he owes them a great deal, but he describes Garland as "like a father, such an important force in my life."

The Rhythm Section

Cedar Walton, four years older than Ivery, has been at the center of the jazz elite since the late 1950s when his Army service was finished and he began playing in bands led by Gigi Gryce, Lou Donaldson and Kenny Dorham. He was the pianist on the original John Coltrane recording of "Giant Steps." He worked with J.J. Johnson, the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Abbie Lincoln and Lee Morgan, among many others. In demand all over the world, he frequently leads Eastern Rebellion, a quartet that has featured saxophonists Clifford Jordan, Bob Berg and Ralph Moore.

Born and raised in Dallas, Walton goes home frequently to visit his mother. During one of those trips in 1966, he met Ivery with Garland at the Arandas. Fortunately, one of most recent of his visits coincided with the Ivery recording sessions, and producer Mark Elliott signed him for the date.

"Marchel is a great exponent of the tenor school that includes Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson and he is a delight to play with," Walton says. "He's at a stage where he deserves to be heard nationally and internationally. I enjoyed this session."

After stints with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Randy Brecker, David Liebman and Bill Watrous and freelancing with dozens of name players, Ed Soph dedicated himself to teaching drummers and is on the faculty of the College of Music at the University of North Texas. He is the author of instruction books on drumming and continues an active career as a performer.

Lyles West, who describes himself as a hillbilly, is from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He was a working musician at the age of seven, playing ukulele in his father's band. A bassist since college, he has played with Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Heath, Junior Cook, Randy Brecker, David Liebman and Kenny Burrell. He moved to Dallas in 1990 and is in constant demand.

The Tunes

"I was impressed," Walton says, "by the way Marchel handled his session in terms of tune selection, keys and moods."

Mark Elliott suggested "Giant Steps" and "Every Time We Say Goodbye." Marchel chose the other eight pieces.

"Marchel's Mode" is approached in a way that allowed for playing "inside" on the harmonic changes or "outside," more or less free of them. Ivery says it's a minor blues with modal overtones.

"Escapade" was written by trumpeter Kenny Dorham for Joe Henderson's classic 1963 Our Thing album on the Blue Note label.

"Ever since I heard Clifford Brown play it, I've been in love with 'Don't Blame Me,'" Ivery says. Walton calls it one of his favorite ballads. Both of their solos reflect deep understanding of the song's substance.

"Wee" is one of the most durable of the hundreds of jazz tunes constructed on the changes of George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm." It is taken at a fair clip here, but nothing like the one Sonny Stitt used to impose on Ivery.

"Sonny used to run me into the ground with that tune," he says. "Breakneck speed, key changes all over the place. So when someone said let's do something on 'Rhythm' changes, I immediately thought of 'Wee.'"

"Jeannie's Tune" is reminiscent of several superior popular ballads of the 1940s but is based on none of them. It is named for Jeannie Donelly, who heard Ivery developing it at the Recovery Room and liked it so much that he, in effect, gave it to her. "Every time I worked there," Marchel says, "she insisted that I play it."

"Firm Roots" is one of Walton's best known compositions. Ivery says, "Cedar and I had fun with it." So did Soph, giving a stunning demonstration of the difficult art of playing brushes at a fast tempo.

Despite having been the original pianist for Coltrane's harmonically complex "Giant Steps," Walton hadn't played it for years and was reluctant to do it. Elliott insisted, so Walton wrote out the changes and the quartet did it in two takes. "It's such a challenging tune to play," Ivery says. The challenge was met.

From the array of Thelonious Monk compositions Ivery admires, he selected "Nutty," first recorded by Monk in 1954 in a trio date for Prestige. Of standard AABA construction, with a change from b-flat to e-flat in the B section, "Nutty," properly played, isn't as simple as it seems. "The way Monk voiced the harmonics," Ivery points out, "gives it that special touch."

Producer Elliott had heard Marchel play "Every Time We Say Goodbye" and made it the second mandatory piece of the session. As on "Don't Blame Me," Ivery and Walton turn in exemplary ballad performances.

The album concludes with Ivery's unaccompanied solo on Monk's "Ruby, My Dear," one of the most beautiful jazz ballads. Marchel's exposition of the melody is augmented by little phrases of commentary that are like conversations with himself. One chorus, and he's said what he had to say.

As preparations were made for release of Marchel's Mode, Ivery was about to join fellow tenor saxophonist Red Holloway in Holland for a tour with the trio of the respected pianist Rein De Graff. A series of New York club dates was being arranged. It's Marchel's time, Cedar Walton says. It seems that a wider audience is about to discover Ivery and agree that this fine player's time has come.

Doug Ramsey
April 1994


Doug Ramsey is the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers (University of Arkansas Press), a contributing editor of Texas Monthly and a contributor to Jazz Times and the Chicago Tribune.