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Lennie Felix That Cat Felix
Recorded February 12 1958
Label : Nixa
Format : [email protected]
Lennie Felix b. 16 August 1920, London, England, d. 29 December 1980. Although Felix began his career in the years immediately before World War II, it was in the early post-war period that he became an established pianist on the London jazz club scene. In the 50s he played in the UK with Freddy Randall and Harry Gold, and in New York with Henry ‘Red’ Allen and Buster Bailey. Towards the end of the decade he was a member of Wally Fawkes’ Troglodytes. He continued to play through the 60s and 70s, making records and radio broadcasts. At his best as a soloist or leading a trio, Felix displayed the traits of dominant musical personalities such as Fats Waller, Earl Hines and Art Tatum. Perhaps as a result of such mentors he was temperamentally unsuited to the role of accompanist and some of his musical partnerships ended disastrously. One, with visiting American cornetist Ruby Braff, a man not known for his reticence in dealing with awkward associates, ended with the visitor declaring, ‘I asked for a piano player and they gave me a disease.’ During the Christmas season, 1980, Felix was struck by a car as he was leaving a London jazz club and he died on 29 December that year
Tracklist:
01 Back Home Again in Indiana (2:48 )
02 Pennies from Heaven (Take 1) (2:45)
03 Pennies from Heaven (Take 2) (2:53)
04 Prelude to a Kiss (4:48 )
05 Fine and Dandy (2:13)
06 Squeeze Me (3:01)
07 On the Sunny Side of the Street (4:47)
08 If I Had You (5:07)
09 One for Bill (3:40)
Personnel:
Lennie Felix - piano
Album Notes :
JAZZ IS OLD ENOUGH to have formed a fairly constant background for many European musicians. Their familiarity with it is such that they can now express themselves in it with an assurance natural only to those who have heard a language in use from birth. Yet despite its freedom and universal appeal, jazz as a musical language remains inescapably American. As would therefore be expected, it is only rarely that the non-American contributes new words to the language, to one that is already remarkably
expressive. What he is doing however, with increasing and valuable frequency, is to express new thoughts fluently in the idiom on old and new themes, adding indefinable touches of his own personality in matters of tone, tempo, phrasing, etc.
During the last two decades, more and more European jazzmen have emerged who challenge comparison with their American counterparts. Names that readily spring to mind are George Shearing, Bruce Turner, Johnny Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttelton and Kenny Baker from England,and Claude Bolling and Guy Lafitte from France. To these must be added that of Lennie Felix.Pianist Felix was born in London in 1920. He played such places as the Studio Club before the war.Of six years in the RAF, three were spent in India. Returning to England in 1946, he joined Freddy
Randall.s band and then went off to a job in Cape Town with three of its members. Before leaving
South Africa, he played for a while with trumpeter Billy Farrell.s big band in Johannesburg. During 1950-51 he frequently visited New York as pianist aboard the Mauritania and he recalls nights with Erroll Garner at Cafe Society and sitting in with Henry Allen and John Kirby. In 1954 he toured British bases in Korea and the Far East and the following year toured Europe and North Africa with an American show. It was while with the latter that he decided to try Paris as a solo act. He took Garland
Wilson.s place at the Boeuf Sur le Toit and also played the Mars Club. After six months in Paris, he returned to England to work in clubs and with bands like Freddy Randall.s, Harry Gold.s and Joe Daniel.s. With such considerable and varied experience behind him, it is no surprise to find that Lennie plays piano with real authority. But what is most immediately enchanting is the warm, inspirational character of his music. As on the previously issued EP (NJE 1041), two takes of one number are side by side. Recorded within seconds of each other, these two versions of Pennies From Heaven are astonishingly different in mood, tempo and treatment. The first, taken very fast, is much more than a tour de force. Like the late Art Tatum, Lennie has not only the ability to swing at such a tempo but also to sound supremely relaxed. For the slower second version, a more mellow mood is established but the
development is comparably imaginative. To Lennie, Art Tatum is still the greatest. He loves Earl Hines, and greatly admires Teddy Wilson and the .stride. school of James P Johnson and Fats Waller. These peerless sources of jazz inspiration are naturally reflected in his playing in the same way that the music of Earl and Fats was reflected in Tatum.s and Wilson.s. This is normal to the course of jazz growth and the one blues and seven wellchosen standards on this record are a demonstration of the fact that evolution and revolution are not synonymous. In effect, Lennie Felix builds anew on the best of the old. His approach, as opposed to contemporary intellectual tendencies, is essentially instinctive. His swinging, often dramatic and lyrically warm conceptions emphasize the most valid and worthwhile characteristics of jazz.
Notes by Stanley Dance
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