Brother Jack McDuff
Perhaps best known for his work with guitarist George Benson, and later being sampled on A Tribe Called Quests’ Scenario, “Brother” Jack McDuff released around 70 albums across labels such as Prestige, Atlantic, Blue Note, Chess and Concord Jazz.
While he experimented with different styles, McDuff stuck with the organ for most of his career and continued releasing music up until his death in 2001.
Born in Champaign, Illinois on September 17 1926, Eugene McDuffy is best known under his professional name Jack McDuff, cutting the Y from McDuffy because “it just didn’t swing”. McDuff, an orphan, grew up in a religious household, and said his adoptive parents were so strict he had to keep a radio hidden under his pillow just to hear non-secular music.
McDuff got some early experience playing piano at the church his adoptive-father was minister of, and on the pump organ in their house when no one was listening. But it was when McDuff joined the U.S. Navy that he really found himself.
While serving as a steward’s mate, stationed in Brisbane, Australia, McDuff was playing upright bass and learning piano. A pianist who was also serving gave him lessions, and when he the left the Navy in 1946 McDuff had decided to become a musician.
During this time he met Lester Shackleford, a tenor saxophonist from Gary, Indiana, and McDuff joined his Quartet, touring with them for several years. He then contributed piano as part of saxophonist Jimmy Coe’s group in 1949 before switching to bass again in 1950 and touring as part of Count Lee’s Sextet. The following year McDuff made one of his earliest recordings, providing piano on tenor saxophonist Schoolboy Porter’s Stairway To The Stars, where he was credited as McDuffy.
After forming his own Jazz group in 1953, where he played piano, McDuff had dreams of becoming the next Count Basie or Duke Ellington. His group the Sky Rockets had a residency in Indianapolis in 1955 and featured the vocalist Dahl Scott, aka “Miss Swing”, Mr Slippin’ And Slidin’, Count Demon, and Bobby “Poontang” Marshall.
But although he managed to build a great reputation, the group didn’t earn enough money to put food on the table, and three years later in 1956 he quit music. Instead he returned to Champaign, Illinois to manage a dry cleaners his adoptive-father had opened.
Of course, he found it hard to leave music behind completely, and McDuff occasionally took gigs and sat in on sessions when the opportunity arose. After a year, McDuff returned to Chicago and gave up the bass after playing in a band with “bluesy Chicago bop saxman” Johnny Griffin. McDuff said he decided the bass wasn’t his instrument as Griffin liked to play, “150 miles an hour and…my hands looked like a piece of beef.”
As times changed, McDuff switched to the organ near the end of the decade. Bands would often struggle to get hired unless they had someone playing an organ, as McDuff would later explain, “there weren’t enough jobs for piano trios, but we did have a chance for organ jobs”.
At the time Jack McDuff was playing in McGee’s club in Chicago, when the owner told him he had bought an organ, and if McDuff couldn’t play it then he was fired. Assuring him that he could play the organ, McDuff quickly went to another club and taught himself how to use their Hammond B-3 organ.
The jazz organ is most often associated with Jimmy Smith had played piano until Smith heard Wild Bill Davis playing on the organ and decided to make the switch. The Hammond B-3 was released in 1955, and became the organ of choice for many, with Smith said to be attracted to the electric instrument because it didn’t go out of tune. Jimmy Smith made his name when he burst onto the scene in 1956, with his debut album A New Sound-A New Star released on Blue Note, and he would influence and inspire a string of jazz organists across the country. This included Jack McDuff, who went to see Smith play in the late 1950’s, following his own set at McGee’s, and he later said:
“Jimmy Smith was the man, and he had Duck (Donald Bailey) and Thornel Schwartz with him. When I saw them three cats making all that music, I said, ‘What???’ The organ didn’t impress me that much until I heard the way Jimmy played that sucker. And from then on, man, it was a matter of trying to play, not like him, but with the style he was playing.”
The switch to the organ led to the nickname “Brother Jack”, thanks to the gospel and church association of the instrument, and McDuff once commented himself, “they call me Brother Jack for a reason. I’m Rev McDuff’s boy, and once you get that church in you it’s kinda hard to back out all the way.”
In 1957 saxophonist Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson’s band arrived in Chicago without an organist and Jack McDuff filled in. The appointment was only meant to be temporary while Jackson looked for another regular organist, but McDuff stayed with him for the next two years and Jackson encouraged McDuff to stick with the organ.
When Jackson formed a new band, The Willis Jackson Quintet, it featured Alvin Johnson on drums, Bill Jennings on guitar, Brother Jack McDuff on organ, and Tommy Potter on bass. Together they recorded the album Please Mr. Jackson, released by Prestige in 1959. This was the quintet’s only album together, though Willis Jackson released several other solo albums for Prestige which also featured Jack McDuff and the rest of his quintet.
In fact most of these songs were recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey in one day, and the sessions were later collected in 2012 for the album A One-Day Session 05/25/59, which noted the fourteen tracks were spread across five different albums released between 1959–1967.
Back in 1959, Prestige were impressed with Jackson’s group and offered Bill Jennings and Jack McDuff their own albums. Jennings, who had previously released work on King Records, would release Enough Said! for Prestige in 1959 with McDuff on organ. Enough Said! was followed by two more albums in 1960, credited as “Bill Jennings with Jack McDuff” on Glide On, and “Jack McDuff with Bill Jennings” on Brother Jack.
Brother Jack was the debut album from Jack McDuff, and led to his own contract with Prestige, and McDuff’s band gained popularity during the 1960s, and grew from a trio to quartet and quintet, and toured across the USA and to Europe.
In the early 60s McDuff brought in George Benson as guitarist who toured for several year as part of his band, and this period features some of McDuff’s best known work. But Benson left in 1965 to pursue a solo career because McDuff wouldn’t let him sing, telling Miami New Times in 1998 that McDuff hated singers, and refused to have any vocalists in his band.
While looking back on his career in 1995 McDuff was asked about his band’s classic lineup of George Benson, Red Holloway, and Joe Dukes, and whether he realised how good they were. He answered, “I don’t think so, man…I thought we sounded good, but I thought it was just the work that made us sound that good…and the way we rehearsed and played together…I haven’t had nothin’ like that since.”
For the record buying public, they wouldn’t have noticed an immediate change, as Benson’s guitar continued to feature on albums from McDuff until 1969, and even then he occasionally reappeared on one or two McDuff songs into the 1990s.
The 1960s period on Prestige records were incredibly productive for McDuff. He became known as one of the top jazz organists, ranked alongside Jimmy Smith. His 1963 album Live! won a prize in France as one of the best Jazz albums released in that year, and in the US it entered Billboard’s 200 Chart where it spent fourteen weeks, peaking at #81.
Prestige were said to be so impressed with the album that each of the bands members were given solo albums, and in 1964 the group released five albums, with each member of the quartet given the chance to lead on one. These included Red Holloway’s Cookin’ Together and George Benson’s The New Boss Guitar were followed by The Soulful Drums Of Joe Dukes.
By 1964 Jack McDuff had released twelve albums on Prestige in four years, and his first Greatest Hits album arrived in 1966.
He would go on to release albums with Verve, Cadet, and Blue Note before the end of the 1960’s, while continuing to release albums with Prestige into the 1970’s. This period also saw several collaborations, with McDuff and his organ appearing on albums from Roland Kirk, Gene Ammons, Jimmy Witherspoon, and further collaborations with Willis Jackson.
By now tastes were changing, and as a band leader Jack McDuff seemed to be aware that not everyone loved the sound of the jazz organ. While his early albums on Prestige are drenched in loud organ, McDuff wasn’t afraid to let the instrument play a support role too, and there are occasional tracks where he relegates himself to playing basslines, with only a few across an album really showing off his organ skills.
While he has remained is closely associated with the Hammond B-3 organ, during the late 1960’s McDuff switched to the Hammond X-77, before switching again to synthesisers in the 1970’s as the Hammond sound fell out of favour.
1970 saw the release of Moon Rappin’ on Blue Note. It is perhaps McDuff’s most well known album outside of the jazz community, thanks to it being sampled by several hip hop producers.
Oblighetto was used by A Tribe Called Quest on Scenario from 1991s The Low End Theory album, and they used it again. On the same album, Check the Rhime features the same opening organ, though it’s buried a bit further in the mix there. Moon Rappin’s title track was also sampled on King of N.Y. from Dan The Automator’s A Much Better Tomorrow album from 2000. The Automator handles production here, but it’s Kool Keith who steals the show on one of their best collaborations by far, and the laid back and slinky McDuff sample fits Keith’s flow like he was born for it.
Moon Rappin’ was followed by the excellent Who Know’s What Tomorrows Gonna Bring, and both of these Blue Note albums show McDuff was happy to experiment to experiment with his sound, as he flipped from the fusion on Moon Rappin’ to a more soul inspired sound on Who Know’s What Tomorrows Gonna Bring. The 1970s saw McDuff adapting, often with each new album featuring a fresh sound, as his organ became less fashionable.
Albums such as 1975’s Magnetic Feel show McDuff making full use of the synthesiser, mixing thick Moog basslines with electric piano and synthesised strings. But it didn’t always work, as can be heard on Kisses, McDuff’s 1980 album which opens with the incredibly dated sounding title track. Although it gets a little better as the album goes on, it is still some of McDuff’s worst work, and has understandably remained out of print since its release.
Kisses was one of three albums McDuff released by Sugar Hill Records , home of the Sugar Hill Gang. McDuff had released several albums since the 60s on Cadet, a Jazz sublabel of Chess, which would later be bought by All Platinum, owner of Sugar Hill Records.
The period covering the late 70s to late 80s isn’t his strongest work, but McDuff continued to tour and it was during a trip to London that he found his way back to the Hammond B3 organ full time.
During the 1980s in the UK a new sound was developing which would become known as acid jazz, a genre which began with a series of compilation albums put together by Baz Fe Jazz and Gilles Peterson. The series’ second volume, Acid Jazz Vol. 2, featured Jack McDuff’s Hot Barbeque, from his album of the same name released by Prestige in 1966.
Acid jazz had two elements, the live bands such as Galliano and The Brand New Heavies inspired by rare groove, jazz, and funk, and then there were the producers who sampled those same influences and would evolve their sound into trip hop during the 90s.
While in London, Jack McDuff heard some acid jazz music which had sampled his recording of Jive Samba, and he found out many of his records on Prestige were being sold at top dollar by collectors and producers who wanted them for sampling.
This inspired McDuff to return to the sound which made him famous, and he reembraced the Hammond B3 organ for 1988’s comeback album The Reentry.
In the 1990’s McDuff found his home at Concord Jazz and redubbed himself Captain Jack, announcing that he had given himself a promotion.
Back at home on the organ, McDuff still found time to try new things, such as in 1997 when he recorded his first vocals on Saturday Night Fish Fry, a cover song which had been a hit for Louis Jordan in 1949. His vocal style was likened to rapping, with McDuff explaining “it’s sort of a modified version of rap. I think it could pass for rap, but it’s not meant to be. I wanted to make sure people could understand the words, because it’s got such a story to it. That’s the main thing I wanted — to be understood.”
As the decade came to an end, McDuff entered Billboard’s Traditional Jazz Albums chart, peaking at #16 on February 21 1998 with his album Down Home Blues, an album recorded with pianist Gene Harris. McDuff also found time to reunite with past bandmates George Benson and saxophonist Red Holloway on 1999’s Bringin’ It Home.
Now in his 70s, Jack McDuff continued to tour and release new albums, but he was also fighting several health problems as he continued into the 21st century, and Jack McDuff died aged 74 on 23 January 2001 due to heart failure. At the time he had recently recorded what was now billed as “his last recording session”, with the album Brotherly Love released in June 2001.
The album reunited McDuff with Red Holloway, and guitarist Pat Martino who had appeared on several of McDuff’s late 60s Prestige albums, with the drums provided by Grady Tate who had worked with McDuff on occasion since the 70s. The final two songs on the album were duets with Joey DeFrancesco, a jazz organist born in the 70s who had worked with Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith, and McDuff previously on their 1996 collaborative album It’s About Time.
Brotherly Love received praise from Billboard who wrote it was “as exciting as anything he ever recorded, including the landmark LPs he cut in the early- and mid-’60s”, but the album was perhaps overshadowed by McDuff’s death and the knowledge this was his final release.
Reissues and compilations have appeared since, as they did across McDuff’s career, but unsurprisingly, given he released almost 70 albums in 40 years, not every Brother Jack McDuff album is available today. Most of those which are available are from his work with Prestige, but there are albums such as Getting Our Thing Together on Cadet, To Seek A New Home on Blue Note, and his albums for Chess and Sugar Hill which remain out of print.
Not all of these albums are essential, except for the diehard fan. Of course they are available elswhere, and original pressings are available second hand, while rips have appeared online thanks to blogs or YouTube, so there is still the chance for them to be heard.
Jack McDuff was also one of the many artists affected in 2008 when a warehouse fire destroyed recordings owned by Universal Music Group, who own the catalogues of Blue Note, Cadet, Chess, Concord, Prestige, and Verve, or basically every label McDuff recorded for aside from Atlantic. It hasn’t been formally announced what was or wasn’t destroyed in the fire with regards to many of the artists, including Jack McDuff.
Still, many of his recordings remain in print, and recent CD reissues such as 2020’s The Classic Albums 1960–1963 which collected 8 albums on 4 CDs, or Blue Note’s Japanese CD reissue of Down Home Style in 2019, show there is still interest in one of the all time great jazz organists. •
This article was originally published in The Shadow Knows Issue #1, July 2021. Buy the fanzine here or read more at our website.
