George Russell and New York, New York - Some Commentary from the Jazz Literature.

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Think you can lick it?  Get to the wicket.

Buy you a ticket.   Go!

Go by bus, by plane, by car, by train...

New York, N.Y..

What they call a somethin' else town.

A city of more than eight million people,

with a million people passin'

through every day. Some come just to visit

and some come to say. If you scuffle hard enough

and you ain't no dunce, you can always get by

in New York City. I heard somebody say once. Yeah...if you can't make it

in New York City, man, you can't make

it nowhere.

So where do people come to scuffle? Right here.

Think you can lick it?  Get to the wicket. Buy you a ticket.  Go! New York, N.Y., a city so nice. They had to name it twice. It may seem like a cold town,

but man. let me tell you, it's a soul town.

It ain't a bit hard to find someone who's lonesome or forlorn here...

But it's like findin' a needle in a haystack to find somebody who was born here.

New York, N.Y., a somethin' else town, all right!

East side, west side, uptown, downtown.

There's one thing all New York City has and that's Jazz.

A while ago, there were cats readin' while cats played jazz behind them, but wasn't nothin' happening, so the musicians cooked right on like they didn't even mind them.

I wrote the shortest jazz poem ever heard.

Nothin' about lovin' and kissin'...

One word...LISTEN!!”

- Jon Hendricks, vocalese introduction to Manhattan

With Milt Hinton’s string bass and Charlie Persip playing brushes on snare drum in the background, Jon speaks these poem-like lyrics on Manhattan, the opening track of George Russell’s album New York, New York [Decca DL 9116].

Each time I listen to Jon’s vocalese, the orchestral arrangement and the individual solos on this track, I am enthralled anew by the way all of these “moving parts” fit together so smoothly.

It is a magnificent piece of Jazz scoring.