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Clifford Jordan & His Friends: Drink Plenty Water CD 2022

This long-lost 1974 recording from the late Chicago tenor sax master is finally available. Originally recorded for the Strata-East label, Drink Plenty Water is Clifford's only primarily vocal recording release, with inventive arrangements courtesy of bassist Bill Lee. Joining Jordan are Dick Griffin on trombone, Bill Hardman on trumpet, Charlie Rouse on bass clarinet, Strata East co-founder Stanley Cowell on piano, Billy Higgins on drums, Bernard Fennell on cello, and Lee and Sam Jones on bass.

Her late husband's passion project, Sandy Jordan, spearheaded the effort to release Drink Plenty Water. Jordan’s daughter, Donna Jordan Harris, sings lead vocals on several tracks, backed by remaining members of the ensemble. The vocal arrangements bring an unexpected new take to the compositions “Witch Doctor’s Chant (Ee-Bah-Lickey-Doo)” and “I’ve Got a Feeling for You” that first appeared on Clifford Jordan’s 1968 album Soul Fountain. The vocal arrangement for “The Highest Mountain” on Drink Plenty Water makes it the most unique treatment of one of his finest compositions.

Additional tracks include “My Papa’s Coming Home,” a rhythm changes vamp with what trombonist Griffin describes as a “stunning” solo from the leader, and “Drink Plenty Water and Walk Slow,” a short track featuring Fennell and Jordan under a spoken word story from actor David Smyrl.

Other highlights of the 35-minute-long recording are the two tracks titled “Talking Blues” – a spoken-word story from Smyrl about a hustler living the fast life, followed by the instrumental track that reveals great interplay between Jordan, Hardman, Fennell and Griffin.

Clifford Jordan, Tenor Sax

Charlie Rouse, Bass Clarinet

Sam Jones, Bass

Dick Griffin, Trombone

Bernard Fennell, Cello

Bill Lee, Bass and Arrangements

Bill Hardman, Trumpet

Stanley Cowell, Piano

Billy Higgins, Drums

David Smyrl, Vocals

Donna Jordan Harris, Vocals

Kathy O'Boyle, Denise Williams, Muriel Winston, Backup Vocals

All music and lyrics are composed by Clifford Jordan.

TRACK LISTING:

1. The Highest Mountain

2. Witch Doctor's Chant (Ee-Bah-Lickey-Doo)

3. Drink Plenty Water and Walk Slow

4. I've Got a Feeling For You

5. My Papa's Coming Home

6. Talking Blues

7. Talking Blues (instrumental)

Total Time: 36:18

Part Number: HS2022-1

©️ 2022 Harvest Song Records

REVIEWS:

All About Jazz Review:

Clifford Jordan: Drink Plenty Water

By Dave Linn

July 1, 2023

"In August 1974, Clifford Jordan entered the studio for what was to be the follow-up to his acclaimed 2-LP set, Glass Bead Games (1973) for his third album on the Strata-East label. Sadly, the label folded in 1975, and the album was never released. Now, 49 years later, Drink Plenty Water, has finally seen the light of day. It is a time capsule of that collaborative era when jazz stretched its boundaries. It features an all-star roster with a front line of Bill Hardman, Dick Griffin and Charlie Rouse (a rare appearance on bass clarinet), and a rhythm section of Stanley Cowell, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins.

The early 1970s was an era that saw big changes in the jazz/Black music scene. There was jazz-funk with its proponents like Donald Byrd, The Crusaders, and Roy Ayers. It also saw the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, which had a significant impact on the music. Artists began incorporating socially conscious and politically charged lyrics into their music, addressing themes such as racial inequality, civil rights, and empowerment. Strata-East Records, an innovative, artist-owned label starting in 1971, was at the forefront of this musical revolution.

Jordan was a major contributor in the bop and post-bop scene and, coming off his most acclaimed album, decided to go entirely in a different direction. He had absorbed all the influences going on around him and recorded an album almost entirely of vocal-centered music. In the liner notes, Swiss pianist Franz Biffiger, describes this album as the pure opposite of Glass Bead Games, claiming the latter as the "highest level of the Clifford Jordan Quartet work and this as a social and musical event in the tradition of Black folk music"

Four of the first five tunes are short, R&B/jazz tunes featuring Jordan's daughter Donna Jordan Harris, who was 16 years old at the time. Her singing is competent, as are her three backup singers. Three of these are vocal takes on previously recorded Jordan instrumentals.

"The Highest Mountain" opens the record with an acapella gospel chorus before the band kicks in, leading to a spiritual rendition of Jordan's most known composition. "The Witch Doctor's Chant (Ee-Bah-Lickey-Doo)" is a fun, jazzy tune that tells the listener about a magical incantation that will make everything all right. "I've Got a Feeling for You" has an Eddie Harris funk groove underneath. The vocalists sing in unison while Jordan probes and soars between the lyrics. The best performance of the four is the The Manhattan Transfer-sounding "My Papa's Coming Home," which is a joyous celebration from the eyes of a child. From the opening drumbeat to the bass and piano joining in, this is a swinging arrangement allowing Jordan to shine.

The other three tracks are what make this album more than a curiosity. Two songs, "Drink Plenty Water and Walk Slow" and "Talking Blues," feature actor David Smyrl (Emmy winner for the role of Mr. Handford, who ran Hooper's Store on Sesame Street, talked and singed his poems/lyrics over the music. Both songs describe the scourge of drugs and the lifestyle that comes with it. The poems are beautifully written and hip. The message was part of the consciousness the music was bringing to the forefront.

The former is written from the viewpoint of a lifer in prison talking to an ex-jazz horn player who is serving one to ten. The arrangement features the cello of Bernard Fennell and Sam Jones on bass out front. It is a beautiful, sobering performance.

"Talking Blues" is here twice. The first is the vocal, while the second is an instrumental version of the same track. Both are nine and a half minutes in length. The vocal version (see YouTube video below) has an epic poem/lyric going on for almost the entire track. Smyrl's background as an actor is used here to great effect. Once again, he talks/sings about the life of a hustler, spending his life behind bars and reminiscing on how he had lived and what he should have done differently. The final lyric here, though, is one of hope and change.

The instrumental mix showcases what was happening beneath the vocal track. This version is a funky, bluesy jam with all members getting a chance to blow.

In its entirety, this recording is a worthy addition to both Jordan's and the Strata-East legacy. It shows a different side of Jordan while reminding us of a time when a small musician-owned label dared to be different."

...

NPR REVIEW

Newly unearthed 1974 session by Clifford Jordan is a striking, one-of-a-kind album

July 19, 20231:26 PM ET

Heard on 'Fresh Air' NPR

Kevin Whitehead

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

"The tenor sax player came up in Chicago and toured in the '60s with Charles Mingus, Max Roach, and Randy Weston. Jordan's forgotten album, Drink Plenty Water, mixes singers with a small ensemble.

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan came up in Chicago and toured in the '60s with greats like Charles Mingus, Max Roach, and Randy Weston. Jordan's own albums include a tribute to folk bluesman Lead Belly. A newly unearthed 1974 session by Jordan, which mixes singers and an actor with a small ensemble, is out now. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says it's a striking one of a kind.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE WITCH DOCTOR'S CHANT (EE-BAH-LICKEY-DOO)")

CLIFFORD JORDAN: (Singing) When you got something that is on your mind, you say these words and it will make you feel real fine. (Scatting) Ee-bah-lickey, ee-bah-lickey, ee-bah-lickey, ee-bah-lickey-doo.

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: "Witch Doctor's Chant (Ee-Bah-Lickey-Doo)" from Clifford Jordan's album "Drink Plenty Water." He didn't have to look far for singers, drafting his teenage daughter Donna, his wife's sister Denise Williams, and her pal Kathy O'Boyle into an instant girl group. They gave his songs the right street-corner cred.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'VE GOT A FEELING FOR YOU")

JORDAN: (Singing) I feel, feel, feel like a heel, and I don't feel like a big wheel. You left me by myself. I put my blues on the shelf. Why don't you come home, babe, where you belong? I've got a feeling for you.

WHITEHEAD: Dick Griffin on trombone. Clifford Jordan was recording for the independent Black musicians' label Strata-East in 1974 when "Drink Plenty Water" was made. It may have gone unreleased because that year Jordan and company made a commercially unsuccessful Strata-East LP with some of the same front-stoop feel, led by singer Muriel Winston, who also appears here. Still, Jordan's tunes are better, even the dead-simple rondo "My Papa's Coming Home."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY PAPA'S COMING HOME")

JORDAN: (Singing) Coming home, coming home, coming home, I'm coming home. Coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home...

WHITEHEAD: Whether Dad's returning from a business trip, tour of duty or other enforced separation, Clifford Jordan's solo catches the celebratory mood.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY PAPA'S COMING HOME")

JORDAN: (Singing) Coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, coming home, my papa's coming home...

WHITEHEAD: Jordan had previously recorded instrumental versions of a couple of these tunes and arrangements aimed at attracting a wider audience. But "Drink Plenty Water" sounds designed for his core African American constituency. There are a couple of monologues by actor David L. Smyrl, later known as "Sesame Street" shopkeeper Mr. Handford. On the track "Drink Plenty Water And Walk Slow," Smyrl plays a jailhouse sage who's seen it all, sizing up and wising up a new cellmate.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DRINK PLENTY WATER AND WALK SLOW")

JORDAN: I hear tell you played that horn once well, but after that five-year layoff, boy, you sound like hell. You were so drug, a tear came to your eye, and you put that horn back in the case and heaved a sigh. You was about to have a nervous breakdown if Splat and Doobie and Telly Smith (ph) hadn't told you how good you sound. And another thing that dried that tear in your eye was when they told you that the dinner bell had rung and that the dessert for dinner that night was cherry pie. Boy, you lucky that you were snatched out of the alley in the Valley on 50th Street and stood up in this prison on your own two feet.

WHITEHEAD: That jostle of words and music recalls Charles Mingus' beatnik jazz and poetry mashups. But David Smyrl's 1974 streetwise rhymed couplets also look ahead a few short years to hip-hop. It's a reminder of the deep roots of rap and African American oral literature, even if rappers do it faster. You can hear hip-hop's subject matter coming on Smyrl's tall story "Talking Blues."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TALKING BLUES")

JORDAN: So I hung around, and I played the clown until the Army took me in. Then I spent two years in a Texas town where they didn't like the color of my skin. Well, now the Army didn't like me. I didn't like them. We was glad when we let each other go. Another secondhand car and some cowboy boots and I hit it in New Mexico. Well, I smoked a lot of grass, and I ran a lot of guns. You know, I slept on the ground now and then. Yeah, I lived in the mountains with the bandits for a while till the federal troops came in.

WHITEHEAD: Fine players in Clifford Jordan's extended band include trumpeter Bill Hardman, pianist Stanley Cowell, drummer Billy Higgins and on bass, either Sam Jones or Bill Lee, who also wrote some subtle background charts for the band and who recently passed away. The music for that "Talking Blues" was improvised, and the album ends with that same blues minus the vocal, the better to hear the band's loose goosing. Even so, the flavor of Black speech remains. Jordan's onetime boss Randy Weston said, I like the music to sound like the way Black people talk. Clifford had that sound, that voice. Clifford Jordan's voice comes through clearly in the words and the music on the oddball rediscovery "Drink Plenty Water."

(SOUNDBITE OF CLIFFORD JORDAN SONG, "TALKING BLUES")

MOSLEY: Kevin Whitehead is the author of the book "Play The Way You Feel: The Essential Guide To Jazz Stories On Film." He reviewed the newly released recording by tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan titled "Drink Plenty Water."

Tomorrow on FRESH AIR - is the movie and TV industry collapsing or just reshaping itself to suit the relatively new world of the internet and streaming? We'll talk with Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw about what we, the viewers, can expect in the future, especially now that writers and actors are on strike. I hope you can join us.

For Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley."

(SOUNDBITE OF CLIFFORD JORDAN SONG, "TALKING BLUES")

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Full Disclosure: During the late 1970s to mid-1980s, I was a Booking Agent for Clifford Jordan in the Baltimore and DC areas.

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