Howard McGhee — Maggie’s Back in Town (2024 OJC Remaster)
Qobuz reissue review (August 2024)
Despite being one of bebop’s premier trumpeters — working alongside nearly all of jazz’s best players in the ’40s, ’50s, and ‘60s — Howard McGhee’s career has sadly become something of a genre footnote. This is entirely unfair, as evidenced by the strength of this quasi-comeback album from 1961, recorded as McGhee was re-entering the jazz scene after struggling with drug-related issues throughout the late ’50s. Having worked hand-in-hand with Charlie Parker while Bird was working in California in the mid-’40s, as well as with other titans such as Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro, Milt Jackson, Gigi Gryce, one would have expected this set, with its on-the-nose title, to be an explicit callback to bebop glory. It’s not; instead, McGhee unabashedly explores a different style of playing that’s much more aligned with what his fellow Californians were doing in the early days of the ’60s. This was his second session for Contemporary in 1961, and while the first featured him as a co-leader with Teddy Edwards, he is clearly in charge here, working with fellow Angelenos Phineas Newborn Jr., Leroy Vinnegar, and Shelly Manne to bring these seven songs to life. (While Edwards’ saxophone isn’t present in this quartet lineup, two of his compositions — including the title cut — do appear.) The lone McGhee composition, “Demon Chase,” kicks off the proceedings in a bluesy, assertive fashion that sets the pace for the rest of the album. Even in 1961, chestnuts like “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” and “Summertime” were wearing out their welcome in the jazz world, but miraculously, McGhee’s approach — loose, warm, and uptempo — breathes considerable life into both. Maggie’s Back in Town!! brims with confidence and vigor, suffused with the sort of optimistic energy that was prevalent among post-Cool Jazz groups on the West Coast; unfortunately, it would be one of the last recordings McGhee would make until the mid-’70s, as he was again sidelined by personal issues soon after these sessions were cut.
