Gene Ammons cut Boss Tenor in a single day. June 16, 1960, at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Five musicians walked in, recorded seven tunes, and went home. That was the session. Prestige put it out that same year and it has never really gone away.
I love this album. It is one of my favorite records I own, and it carries the Site Favorite badge here. There are only five of those on the whole site. So this piece is not going to be balanced. Fair warning.
The band is Ammons on tenor, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Doug Watkins on bass, Art Taylor on drums and Ray Barretto on congas. One horn over a piano trio, with no second horn to trade fours with, no arranger, and nothing at all to hide behind. Ammons carries every melody himself and that is the point of the record.
The context makes it heavier. Ammons was arrested on narcotics charges in 1958 and served roughly two years, and after his release he was sent back for a parole violation and not free again until 1961. Barely a year after that he was convicted again and sent to Joliet, where he stayed until 1969. So this album sits in a narrow window between two long stretches inside. That is a big part of why Prestige kept it in print for so long. For years, this was the Gene Ammons record.
What you hear is the tone. Ammons had one of the biggest tenor sounds in jazz. Warm, wide, right up front. He came out of the Chicago school, Lester Young lineage with some Ben Webster in it. On the ballads he barely decorates the melody at all. He just plays it and lets the sound do the work.
Hittin' the Jug opens the record and it is the perfect opener. Slow blues, huge tone, total confidence. Here is a detail I really like. It was actually the fifth tune they recorded that day. The matrix numbers run in recording order and the LP does not follow them. Somebody at Prestige sequenced the album for effect and put the blues first. Good call.
Prestige pulled a 45 from the session too, Hittin' the Jug backed with Canadian Sunset, with a promo pressing alongside it. Close Your Eyes and My Romance cover the ballad side. Blue Ammons is his own blues. None of it is complicated. That is not a knock. People file this under soul jazz, and sure. But it is really just the blues played with a great tone, and simple material played with that much sound is exactly what a record like this should be.
A word on the band. Tommy Flanagan might be the most polite pianist you could put behind a horn that big, and it works. Doug Watkins and Art Taylor keep everything in the pocket. And Ray Barretto's congas are the secret. They loosen the whole date without turning it into a Latin record. Prestige used him on a lot of sessions around then, and this album is one of the best cases for why.
The original liner notes were written by LeRoi Jones, who later became Amiri Baraka. That always gets me. One of the major Black writers of the century, writing jacket copy for a Prestige blues date. It was a different era.
Now the pressing, because this is where it gets fun if you collect. My copy is the Analogue Productions reissue. Kevin Gray cut it at Cohearent from the original analog masters, all analog. It was pressed at QRP and comes in a heavy tip-on jacket, and it sounds amazing. The congas sit in the room with you. The tenor is huge.
One warning if you buy it. The jacket is a replica of the original, so it says PRST 7180 right on the cover. That was the 1960 stereo catalog number. The actual reissue number is APRJ 7180. I thought I had something I did not have for a minute. If you see PRST 7180 on a clean modern copy, check the fine print before you decide what it is. It went out in January 2016 with the initial subscriber copies numbered, and there was a 180 gram repress in May 2023.
The whole Analogue Productions Prestige series was built around Van Gelder recordings, and they picked Boss Tenor to represent Ammons, which was the right choice. Van Gelder both recorded and cut the original, with RVG stamped in the deadwax. But originals cost real money now and the reissue works from the same tape. No regrets.
Sunday is when this record comes out at my place. Pour something, drop the needle on Hittin' the Jug, and just let it ride. Seven tunes, one day of work in 1960. Some albums take a year to make and say less.