The Art Farmer Septet

The Art Farmer Septet
Studio album by
Art Farmer
Released1956 (1956)
RecordedJuly 2, 1953 and June 7, 1954
StudioWOR Studios, New York City and Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
GenreJazz
Length33:00
LabelPrestige
ProducerBob Weinstock and Ira Gitler
Art Farmer chronology
The Art Farmer Septet
(1956) 		Early Art
(1954)
10-inch album
1954 10-inch album, Work of Art
Singles from Art Farmer
  1. "Mau Mau (Pt.1 & 2)"
    Released: 1953
  2. "Wildwood/Tia Juana"
    Released: 1954
  3. "Evening in Paris/Elephant Walk"
    Released: 1954

The Art Farmer Septet is an album by trumpeter Art Farmer, featuring performances recorded in 1953 and 1954, arranged by Quincy Jones and Gigi Gryce, and released by Prestige Records in 1956.[1] It is his earliest recorded full-length album, but was his third issued. The cover art was by cartoonist Don Martin.

The recordings made on July 2, 1953 are possibly the earliest studio recordings of the electric bass, according to musician Chuck Rainey.[2] The four tracks with electric bass, played by Monk Montgomery, display his facility with walking bass lines, bebop melodies, and Latin-style ostinato (Rainey said that Monk was the first to record the electric bass). Arranger Quincy Jones highlights Montgomery in the opening sections of three of the four tracks.

All of the players on the 1953 recording were at that time members of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, and subsequently toured europe with Hampton from September to December 1953, except Sonny Johnson.[3][4] Johnson was a previous associate of bass player Monk Montgomery, from Indiana.[5]

The four tracks recorded in 1953 were first issued in 1954 on a 10-inch album Work of Art, on Prestige Records. Three singles were released, the first being “Mau Mau (Pt. 1 & 2)” (Prestige 875) in 1953.

  1. ^ "Art Farmer | Jazz | Discography". Wayback Machine/All About Jazz. January 15, 2012. Archived from the original on January 15, 2012. Retrieved June 18, 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. ^ Interview with Chuck Rainey, Bass Heroes, ed. Tom Mulhern, 1993, pp165.
  3. ^ "Art Farmer Discography: 1948-1957".
  4. ^ Mario Schneeberger. "The european Tour of Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra, 1953" (PDF). Jazzdocumentation.ch. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
  5. ^ Album liner notes by Ira Gitler