As with many musicians who put in serious work on television, Jerry Weldon’s contributions to Harry Connick Jr’s hit daytime TV show HARRY aren’t often in the spotlight. That said, however, there he is day after day, essential to the overall success of the show. Weldon has made a rich and diverse career in music over his 35 years as a professional, and has a strong association with the mighty Hammond organ, with regular appearances at Showman’s Lounge in Harlem, among other organ-friendly clubs around New York. Despite its church background, organ music has an association with the roadhouse blues clubs of the 1950s chitlin circuit, which is about as far from a glitzy television audience you can get. It’s a testament to Weldon’s dedication to his art that he navigates both worlds with such authority and passion. With his Cellar Live debut Those Were The Days, Weldon has made a worthy addition to the growing number of excellent Hammond-based albums that have found a home on this record label.

The stripped down trio format lends itself to stretching out, and many of the selections here display the type of musical rapport that comes from shared musical values and a lot of experience playing together. The trio opens with a reworking of the Philly soul classic Love Won’t Let Me Wait, which features a crisp arrangement and steady grooving from organist Kyle Kohler and drummer Cody Inzer. Percussionist Daniel Sadownick deepens the pocket here and on a few other selections on the record, always adding flavour without distracting. Strangers in the Night and Weldon’s original, Sunny V, both throb with insistent conga, and the latter features a cowbell groove that takes me back to Havana. The writing on Sunny V reminds me of Horace Silver, because of the blend of modern jazz vocabulary with the blues, which is a hallmark of Silver’s music.

Weldon seems to possess the same talent as Sonny Rollins in mining unlikely Broadway scores for material. This is part of the jazz tradition, of course, and Rollins did it about as adventurously as anybody, but I’ve never heard anybody play anything from the musical Oliver! in a jazz context. Where is Love is rendered sentimentally, and Weldon’s gorgeous tone and dynamic control is put on full display. The same could be said for the album’s other ballad selection, the Harry Warren classic This is Always. This is the type of playing that demonstrates the lineage of the tenor saxophone ballad feature from Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. The dynamics and control are astonishing, and Weldon sounds like he is living through his horn in the most soulful, expressive way.

After the up tempo drum feature on Rosetta, which burns brightly, the band adds back Sadownick and returns to the Latin tip for Walk on By. The tempo is slightly faster than most singers do this tune, and Weldon’s playfulness with the melody really puts his signature on this interpretation. Kyle Kohler turns in a lovely solo, working the consoles and draw bars of the organ to great effect. Kohler is also featured heavily on the most canonical of jazz organ blues tunes, The Sermon, where the band is in jam mode and playing with obvious enthusiasm. I never get tired of hearing the endless variations in tone and vibe the Hammond and Leslie can produce.

The album’s closing track is not the theme from All in the Family that bears the same name, but a traditional Russian melody popularized by Mary Hopkin with English lyrics in 1968. The tune bears some resemblance to other harmonically rich tunes that share that eastern European heritage, like Golden Earrings or Autumn Leaves. Tunes like that are full of harmonic meat that musicians like Weldon can make a feast of. The trio swings mightily behind him. As a listener, I’ve reached peak contentment here; I could listen to this for hours. How lucky we are to have people like Jerry Weldon who are passionate about the Hammond organ’s place in modern jazz, and people like Cory Weeds and Cellar Live giving that music a home, to be heard by those of us who share their love and enthusiasm for this music.

Morgan Childs
Toronto