Jack McDuff Live at Parnell’s

Jazz organist ‘Brother' Jack McDuff was second only to the infamous Jimmy Smith in terms of fame and the impact he made with the King of keyboard instruments - the Hammond B-3 Organ. Self-taught on the organ, he recorded with Willis Jackson and Roland Kirk in the late '50s and early '60s, cutting high calibre souljazz dates for Prestige Records, and later Argo / Cadet. Blue Note and Verve Records. McDuff can also take the credit for launching the career of a particularly gifted young jazz guitarist when he recruited George Benson to his own quartet, which resulted in Benson's first solo deal in the mid 1960's.

Live At Parnells is made up of 15 tracks selected from a week-long engagement in June 1982. Stylistically, Jack and his group cover a lot of ground, especially for an organ quartet – from beautifully old school funky, gritty blues with tracks like "Walkin' The Dog" and "Blues 1 & 8," jazz standards like "April In Paris," and "A Night In Tunisia" through to some frenetic and distinctly edgy fast paced jazz fusion type numbers - "Make It Good" and "Untitled D Minor" - and this reflects how Jack's ears were open to the newer, freer sounds that had developed in jazz and reflected in some of his recordings as The Heatin' System – as several tracks have modal and fusion touches that sound remarkably current.