Introducing Tubbs

Recorded and released 1961. Tubbs begins with a Hayes tune “The Late One” and he does what he does best—hard swinging at a way up tempo, tearing up the chord changes and displaying amazing saxophone technique. The rhythm section is solid and swinging, not as aggressive, interactive, and deep in the groove as you would have heard in New York when Philly Joe Jones or Blakey or Roach or any of the other top guys was sitting at the drums, but still far better than all the carping about “non swinging British drummers” would make you expect. “Wonderful! Wonderful!”, the Johnny Mathis ballad hit seems an unlikely tune choice and Hayes plays it up tempo with a staggering Coltrane “Giant Steps” like fluency. The album has four quartet tunes and five big band tunes. Hayes was an accomplished arranger, with ambitions, later fulfilled, to front a big band and Fontana was willing to provide the budget to hire one. The arrangements are in the style of The Woody Herman band of the early to mid-60s—straightforward and hard swinging with bop soloing. “Cherokee” is an exciting “flagwaver” performance--just Hayes’ burning tenor with interjections from the big band. Hayes’ vibraphone playing is featured on two tunes and it’s the other side of the coin of his tenor playing—relaxed, pretty, melodic and lightly swinging. Tubbs is a strong album, featuring lots of Hayes’ superb tenor playing which mates hard swinging in the Johnny Griffin manner with the harmonic ideas of the Coltrane “sheets of sound” and Giant Steps eras.