On ‘A Fickle Sonance’, Jackie McLean restates his Hard Bop credentials, though there is more than a hint towards the avant-garde that its follow-up ‘Let Freedom Ring’ embraced. This date from 26th October 1961 features a quintet with trumpeter Tommy Turrentine alongside McLean in the horns, whilst the rhythm section comprises a young Billy Higgins on drums, bassist Butch Warren and Sonny Clark on piano. Clark’s free-flowing piano is a feature on ‘Five Will Get You Ten’. McLean’s ‘Subdued’ is a very mellow tune and sublimely subtle. Clark is magnificently delicate. ‘Sundu’, another Clark composition, is an exotic gem with great solos from all three frontmen. The title song, a McLean original hints at the left-field things to come and then settles into a fast-paced blues propelled powerfully by Warren and Higgins. McLean takes the lead off solo, before Tommy Turrentine takes over with a fluid solo. Tommy Turrentine’s ‘Enitnerrut’ (his surname spelt backwards) is a flowing blues powered by Higgins drumming and some nifty bass work courtesy of Warren. It is another top draw Bop tune with a fine melody to boot. Butch Warren wrote the sixth and last track ‘Lost’ that seems anything but lost. McLean’s early 60’s Blue Note recordings manifest his Bop grounding, whilst display the restlessness that would propel him towards challenging Jazz that re-shaped the music in the mid-sixties.
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