Quiet Kenny

a (somewhat brief) look at Kenny Dorham

Often regarded as a highly underrated and underappreciated jazz trumpet player and composer, Kenny Dorham was one of the most active bebop era trumpet players, playing in the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, and Lionel Hampton, as well as in Charlie Parker’s quintet and in the original Jazz Messengers group.

In addition to all of these various bands and features, he also led his own band on quite a few releases, composing many original pieces, including the now-standard Blue Bossa, originally recorded/released on Joe Henderson’s ‘Page One’ album.

For the purposes of this post (and to keep this from being an incredibly sprawling retrospective as Kenny appeared on well over 200 releases), I’m only going to focus on my favorite albums with Kenny as band leader, and mostly from the period from 1955 to 1964, when he made his last recording as leader on ‘Trompeta Toccata.’ I’ll keep my commentary fairly light since this is a lot of ground to cover.

One other thing to note: I am going to try to avoid making statements such as ‘the best recording of his career’ since many of these albums could fit the bill, depending on who you ask.

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Afro-Cuban (1955)

Originally issued on 10” in 1955, this was later re-released as part of the 1500 series in 1957 on 12”. This album is notable for the infusion of Latin-inspired playing that pre-dated others of the style. Contextually, this makes Afro-Cuban an important album, and an essential from Kenny’s early catalog as band leader.

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Round About Midnight (1956)

This album was recorded live at the Cafe Bohemia in 1956 and is widely regarded as an essential album in any jazz catalog. This fantastic set of understated, intimate playing is worth adding to your permanent listening rotation. The version of ‘Round About Midnight’ from this recording is one of my personal all-time favorites!

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Jazz Contrasts (1957)

An interesting album featuring Sonny Rollins, this one is notable for the inclusion of the harp, which is quite uncommon in jazz outside of a handful of performers (though, in contemporary jazz there seems to be a renaissance of sorts with jazz harp). I wouldn’t classify this album as groundbreaking, but it’s a nice set, though a bit short!

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This Is The Moment! (Sings and Plays) (1958)

This is the first and only album featuring Kenny’s vocals, and here they are front and center on every track. While not initially well-received and still fairly polarizing, Kenny’s vocals admittedly aren’t winning awards. However, I find his singing very endearing — very real. While the glistening vocals of vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are a delight, they are otherworldly vocalists. Kenny’s singing is like a a good friend singing to you after you’ve shared a couple drinks. It’s intimate, vulnerable, and beautiful in its imperfections. A delight that has some emotional weight if you let yourself enjoy it for what it is.

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Blue Spring (1959)

This oft-overlooked release was a bit of a light concept album featuring tracks that all have ‘spring’ in the name, including four of his own compositions. While I wouldn’t classify this album as ‘essential,’ the original tracks here are great and worth adding to a playlist (or picking up the album for).

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Quiet Kenny (1960)

To me, this is my favorite of Kenny’s albums as band leader and the first one I recommend to anyone considering exploring his discography. It would likely end up in a ‘top 50’ if I had to put one together. A stunning set of originals and standards, Kenny navigates this set with a relaxed ease that is just a joy to listen to. I could wax poetic about this one all day, but instead I’ll just strongly encourage everyone to listen to the full album.

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Whistle Stop (1961)

Featuring a star-studded supporting group, this album is a must-listen. While I may be a bit biased considering I am a big fan of literally everyone in this group, objectively this is an essential album, and critics seem to agree. I will note that Kenny’s solos might not be his best work here, but all-in-all the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts here, I think.

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Matador (1963)

Matador is a weird case of a great album being totally neglected for decades. It received little fanfare and was relatively unknown outside of jazz circles, this album hasn’t seen nearly the amount of attention as many of his others. However, now Impex has repressed this fairly recently and it can be picked up for around $40 on vinyl (though the stereo panning is a bit jarring at first, it sounds fabulous). Calling this a ‘deep cut’ might be a bit of a stretch, though.

This album sees Dorham pared with Jackie McLean, who composed the featured track ‘Melanie’ below.

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Una Mas (1964)

A fairly short set, featuring the sprawling title track ‘Una Mas.’ Once again with Joe Henderson, this album sees Kenny team up with the up-and-coming Herbie Hancock as well. The album as a whole is pretty solid, but ‘Una Mas’ is the highlight here for me.

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Trompeta Toccata (1964)

While this would be Kenny’s last recording as a band leader, it’s a fabulous one! While only four tracks long (like Una Mas), once again he proves that quality over quantity is the way to go. I had much difficulty choosing between the title track and ‘Mamacita’ to feature — the latter apparently had Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff moving along with the music.

After this album, Kenny only appeared on a few scattered albums as a feature until his health declined and he ultimately passed away in 1972 from complications of kidney disease.

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Some other unrelated notes…

• While putting this together today, I’ve been wearing a sample of ‘Jazz’ from Zernell Gillie to help get in the mood. While I’ll keep my thoughts on this fragrance and the rest of the line to myself for now (I plan on doing a post about this line in the nearish future), I will say that Jazz is my personal favorite. I like the concept of music-inspired fragrance, and it overlaps a bit with what I have been exploring here with my Scents & Sounds series, so picking up samples was a no-brainer.

• In less than two weeks, Roy Hargrove’s Earfood will see its first ever vinyl release, from Universal Japan. This album in particular has been on my shortlist of albums I wish would be released on vinyl for a long time, so I am particularly excited about it (and yes, I pre-ordered many months ago). While I have yet to find any retailers offering pre-orders in the U.S., I placed mine via Juno in the UK. I am not sponsored or anything — just sharing!

• I recently purchased a work from the artist Lawrence James Bailey. While I collect portraiture/figurative art primarily, I have been searching for artists that explore different mediums and was pleasantly surprised to stumble across his work thanks to a feature from Drawing Pöx here on Substack. The work features embroidery, which is a totally new medium in my collection.