The OLIVER NELSON INTERVIEW By JOHN COBLEY

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Oliver Nelson

ALTO AND TENOR SAXOPHONES, ARRANGER

born 4 June 1932; died 27 October 1975

If Nelson had only been responsible for The Blues And The Abstract Truth (1961), one of the most perfectly played, arranged and programmed of all jazz albums, he would have been an immortal; but he contributed much else to the jazz book of his time, and it's sad that the business preferred to send him in the direction of commercial scoring. 

He was playing second alto for Louis Jordan in the early 50s before military service, and then studied theory in Washington before working back in New York with Louie Bellson and Quincy Jones. He began getting steady work as an arranger-composer - Afro/American Sketches, an inventive pastiche of various black-music forms, was recorded in 1961 -as well as recording small-group albums as a leader. Besides the above-mentioned masterpiece - which has an extraordinary band including Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard and Bill Evans - he made seven albums for the Prestige group of labels and more for Impulse!, most of which showcased his tenor and alto work, lugubrious but prone to bursting into a sudden tear-up. By the middle of the decade he was in demand for both festival commissions and film and TV work, and he played less: much of his big-scale work has a tiresome edge, involving effortful European borrowings, but such fine set pieces as 'Walk On The Wild Side' for Jimmy Smith created a personal space for Nelson within the arranging continuum. Most of his later time was spent writing cop-show music for television and film, and his sudden death in 1975-from a heart attack, although a drink problem didn't do his health any favours - curtailed a career that might have had much interesting music in it yet.”

• Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia