# CD review: Houston Person meets Peter Beets Trio – Live in Holland – 2024: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2024/04/03/cd-review-houston-person-meets-peter-beets-trio-live-in-holland-2024-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2024-04-03T00:02:58+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**When tenor saxophone soul maestro Houston Person talks about his life and career—
like the time he was studying at the Hartt Conservatory, in Connecticut, and wound
up playing with Coleman Hawkins — he often drops in a self-effacing phrase like,“
I got lucky,” then erupts in a hearty laugh.**

Don’t let that “aw, shucks” manner fool you. This 88-year-old veteran may make everything
sound as breezy as his svelte 2013 album Nice’n’Easy, but that distinct, throaty
sound and effortless-sounding solo style developed not through luck, but serious
study, smarts and grit. As did his 60-plus-year career as a self-managed, working
musician who has toured five continents and released 75 albums as a leader.

“It just grew and grew,” Person insists, seeming to shrug as he speaks on the phone
from his home on Long Island, New York. “I enjoy it. I have no complaints.”

Person shows few signs of slowing down. He recently produced and co-released I Want
A Little Boy, with infectious San Francisco singer Kim Nalley (and guest vocalist
Maria Muldaur), which they showcased for an adoring crowd at last year’s Monterey
Jazz Festival. Nalley, who used to own Jazz at Pearl’s in the City by the Bay, started
working with Person in the ’90s, but in some ways had known him all her life.

“When he was going to school, he knew my grandmother, who used to hang out at after-
hours sessions in New Haven,” where Arthur Prysock and Jimmy Scott were regulars,
recalls Nalley. “It was quite a lively Black scene back in those days.”

Person’s esthetic took shape in that era, when jazz functioned as neighborhood social
entertainment and moved with a deep dance groove — finger-popping fast or bunny-
hug slow, a time when soloists never let you forget the melody and when the saxophone
sounded like it was making love to you.

“Once he gets hold of a tune, he’s going to make you cry, or wiggle in your seat
and tap your toe,” says Nalley, who’s right there with him on I Want A Little Boy.

She brings the sexy 12/8 torch song “Never Let Me Go” to a growling, yodeling climax(
à la Gil Scott-Heron); nails the unusual ballad “It’s All In The Game” (a hit for
the Four Tops); and channels a bit of Dinah Washington on “Try A Little Tenderness.”

Nalley and Person also have another connection. She wrote a Ph.D. dissertation about
African-American musicians in post-World War II Germany, a cohort that included 
Person himself, who was stationed in Heidelberg with the Air Force in the late ’
50s. There, the saxophonist often sat in with players in the 7th Army band, like
Cedar Walton, Eddie Harris and Leo Wright. Person’s 1968 Prestige album with Walton,
Blue Odyssey, is an unsung mainstream classic.

Last year, Person also issued Reminiscing At Rudy’s, a swinging quintet nod to the
great producer Rudy Van Gelder (1924–2016), whose fabled Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,
studio has hosted dozens of Person sessions over the years, including the tenor 
saxophonist’s first recording as a leader, 1967’s Underground Soul! (Prestige), 
featuring organist Charles Boston, trombonist Mark Levine and drummer Frank Jones.

Recorded for his longtime label home, HighNote, the ballads-heavy Reminiscing At
Rudy’s features Person with guitarist Russell Malone, bassist Mathew Parish, pianist
Larry Fuller and drummer Lewis Nash.

On Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone To Love,” the saxophonist testifies 
over Fuller’s funky tremolo; crystallizes the sweetness of Walton’s ballad, “I’ll
Let You Know”; takes Paul Anka’s teenybopper plea “Put Your Head On My Shoulder”
to a plausible place it’s never known; and gooses Henry Mancini’s waltz “Moon River”
into swinging 4/4 with a chipper, clipped delivery.

“Everybody’s been calling me about that,” says Person. “I’ve been playing it that
way forever.”

For Person, “forever” is only half hyperbole. Raised in Florence, South Carolina—
Arthur Prysock country — in the 1930s, Person took up saxophone at 17, then played
in the big band at South Carolina State College before enlisting in the service.
After classical training at Hartt, where his classmates included bassist Ron McClure
and vocalist Dionne Warwick, Person was hired by organist Johnny “Hammond” Smith,
recording nine albums with him for Riverside and Prestige from 1963 to ’70.

The popularity of B-3 groups insulated Person from the ’60s assault of rock on the
jazz market and probably also reinforced his sense of jazz as entertainment.

“The organ stayed closer to the values of what we considered jazz music, which was
dance music and having fun,” Person says. “If you take the dance out of it, people
go elsewhere.”

Prestige picked up Person as a leader in 1966. Underground Soul! was followed by
nine more albums, two of which — Person To Person and Houston Express — were re-
released in 1996 as part of Prestige’s Legends of Acid Jazz series.

Person also starred on one of the most durable Billboard-charted R&B albums of the
late ’60s, Charles Earland’s Black Talk, which, among other crossovers, funkified“
Aquarius,” from the musical Hair.

Etta Jones had already made a name for herself with her 1960 hit “Don’t Go To Strangers”
when she and Person solidified their intermittent musical (though not personal) 
partnership, in 1973. The pair went on to tour and recorded together for more than
a quarter of a century, snagging Grammy nominations twice, for Save Your Love For
Me (1980) and My Buddy: Etta Jones Sings The Songs Of Buddy Johnson (1998).

Person not only toured and recorded with Jones, who died in 2001, he produced her
albums, a role he also has taken on for Joey DeFrancisco, Lafayette Harris, Red 
Holloway, David “Fathead” Newman, Ernie Andrews, Earland and many others.

Person credits Van Gelder for teaching him a lot about production by example: “Help
gather the personnel, take care of administrative duties, make things comfortable.
These are some of the greatest musicians in the world. Then just stay out of the
way and let them create.”

Says Barney Fields, who succeeded his father, Joe, at HighNote when he passed in
2017, “It’s all about the tunes. They fit a certain groove. They’re danceable. Soulful.
Cedar Walton knows what tunes he wants to do, but with Houston, there’s a respect.
He’s done it. And he’s very efficient, timewise. He gets things done.”

At 88, you might think Person would consider kicking back a bit. “I say I’m going
to do it,” he confesses. “And it sounds good, it sounds logical. But then somebody
calls and I say yes.”

Houston Person wears the Boss Tenor crown, worn so long by Gene Ammons. Mr. Person
is busy working his own gigs; booking his tours, finding new clubs, having phone
numbers for every major concert promoter on every continent. He even produces his
own albums. His first big break came while working as a sideman with organist Johnny
Hammond and his group, co-led by Etta Jones. Mr. Person’s working relationship with
Ms. Jones began in 1973 and lasted for thirty years, until her recent passing in
2001.

Early gigs happened while serving in the Army overseas in Germany, where he played
with Eddie Harris, Cedar Walton and others. On Mr. Person’s philosophy of jazz, 
he says, “Well, it’s uplifting and important. And a release and a relief. That’s
what it is, jazz, so called jazz, to me. It’s important that it’s relaxing. Something
that when the end of the day comes, after a hard and frustrating day out in the 
world, that relieves you. Relaxes you and makes you feel good.” Mr Person adds that
all he wants is to give people “good solid melodies with some improvisation and 
plenty of blues feel.” He smiles, “You always want that dance feeling there, that
happy, happy feeling.”

**And Peter Beets is just a fool who doesn’t present anything from himself, unfortunately,
but he tries to present himself under the shadow of a legend, it’s a pity…**

1. Since I Fell For You
 2. Only Trust Your Heart 3. Why Not? 4. Too Late Now 5.
Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me 6. Nice ‘n’ Easy 7. I Hadn’t Anyone Till You

![Houston Person and Peter Beets - Trio Houston Person Meets Peter Beets Trio - '
Live in Holland' (2024) Hi Res](https://i0.wp.com/www.dibpic.com/uploads/posts/2024-
03/1711716657_cover.jpg?resize=640%2C640&ssl=1)

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