Ask a jazz fan to name the greatest players of the bebop/hard-bop/post-bop era of the 1950s and 1960s, and they might list a dozen or two dozen names. However, the odds are above even that Kenny Dorham won’t be among them. Narrow the focus to trumpet players of the same era, and Miles Davis is king, most likely followed by Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan. Those with a deeper interest might name Freddie Hubbard or Donald Byrd. Kenny Dorham? Probably further down the line, if at all.
Dorham led sessions for labels like Riverside and Blue Note. He helped mentor the great tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and bring him to Blue Note’s attention. In the first half of the 1960s, Henderson and Dorham recorded five great albums under one or the other’s name. Dorham was also a composer of both music and prose; he wrote liner notes for Henderson and reviews for Downbeat magazine. He was a passable vocalist and led a jazz band for a youth activist organization in Harlem. Yet after his last Blue Note release, in 1965, he all but disappeared.
In the years since his death in 1972 from kidney disease, Kenny Dorham has become one of those artists who are famous for not having been famous—for being underrated. That this perspective on Dorham has become a cliché doesn’t make it any less accurate. While every week seems to bring a new archival or reissue release from Davis, Morgan, and jazz giants like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, a quick perusal of his Discogs entry reveals this has not been the case for Dorham. There has been a trickle of material, mostly imported compilations of material that has become public domain in those places.
This background is important because against it, the release of Blue Bossa in the Bronx becomes a very big deal, indeed. It is the first Dorham release on a North American label since 2016. The label that put out the last one no longer exists.
The primary components of Dorham’s legacy have been twofold. First is Inta Somethin’, the cracking 1962 live album co-headlined by alto saxophone great Jackie McLean and released, somewhat ironically, on Pacific Jazz Records. There is “Blue Bossa”, his breezy composition with an indelible melody that skirts ever so close to easy listening but conclusively transcends it. Originally issued on Henderson’s 1963 debut Page One, the song became a standard but had never appeared on a Dorham album until now.
Blue Bossa in the Bronx was recorded in 1967 at a New York club called the Blue Morocco. Kenny Dorham was already suffering from kidney problems that hindered his ability to play live, but this is no incidental, barrel-scraping bit of detritus. The esteem in which Dorham was held by his peers is evinced by the group he was able to put together, even in relative obscurity: Veteran pianist Cedar Walton was, like Dorham (though not simultaneously), a one-time member of Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers, while the great hard-bop bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Denis Charles rounded out the rhythm section. Joining Dorham on the front line was alto saxophonist Sonny Red, who was in the midst of a run of albums backing Donald Byrd.
The program is as packed with music as a single CD could be. The quintet make extended runs through a couple of bop standards and two Dorham compositions, with a pair of ballads to balance out the set. The recording was made by sound engineer Bernard Drayton, himself something of an underappreciated legend in the jazz community, and the fidelity is quite good, rising far beyond the level of some historically important but barely-listenable audience recordings.
The band are in good form, sounding crisp but a bit under-rehearsed, which is not surprising given they were not a regular working group. The title track, of course, is the big draw. Taken at a slightly faster pace yet stretched five minutes beyond the original’s length, it is largely faithful to the version that had appeared on Henderson’s record four years earlier.
Kenny Dorham’s smooth, almost languid lyricism is somewhat sharpened by the tempo, but still sounds like no one else. Charles does a nice job of replicating Pete La Roca’s metronomic syncopated beat. Sadly, though, after Chambers’ pizzicato solo, Charles and Dorham fall out of time, and the song stumbles to an awkward conclusion. The other Dorham composition, the sultry, self-descriptive “Blue Friday”, fares better.
The high point of the set comes with a strong, spirited take on Charlie Parker’s dizzying “Confirmation”, Dorham barreling through his lines with confidence before turning it over to Red. Whether due to Dorham’s health or simple generosity, Red gets a majority of the solo time throughout the set. Critic Scott Yannow described the altoist as “good, but not great”, and that’s basically what is on display here.
Red’s angular, sometimes abrasive runs are clearly inspired by what McLean had been up to. If McLean’s sound has been described as “sour”, Red’s is doubly so, contrasting clearly but sometimes uncomfortably with Dorham’s more fluid playing. Listeners can get an unfettered helping of Dorham’s brilliance, though, on the wonderful “My One And Only Love”, which Red sits out.
Blue Bossa in the Bronx comes with extensive liner notes, which include an essay from veteran critic and long-time Dorham fan Bob Blumenthal as well as notes from Dorham’s children and interviews with old school and present-day musicians alike. It all amounts to a celebration of Dorham. If that slightly overshadows the fact that the music, though good, is not on par with Kenny Dorham’s best, the celebration itself is overdue. For newcomers, Inta Somethin’ and those Henderson collaborations await.