Destination...Out! (Remastered) Jackie McLean

• 1Love And Hate08:26
• 2Esoteric09:04
• 3Kahlil The Prophet10:25
• 4Riff Raff07:08
• Total Runtime35:03

Info for Destination...Out! (Remastered)

Is this a Jackie McLean album the way Somethin’ Else is a Cannonball Adderley album? On the latter, Cannon’s 'sideman' Miles Davis seems to be calling the shots. On Destination...Out!, trombonist Grachan Moncur III wrote three of the four tracks and is heard first after the head on the opening number. So was Jackie giving his name to the project to boost sales and get his pal some notice? Another piece of evidence is that this album is almost nothing like other Jackie McLean albums of the period, including One Step Beyond, where Moncur is also present. And as excellent as are such non-Moncur McLean albums as It’s Time and Action, Destination...Out! was a great day for everyone involved (McLean, alto sax; Moncur, trombone; Bobby Hutcherson, vibes; Larry Ridley, bass, and Roy Haynes, drums).

The album opens deep in Moncur’s chambers of darkness. 'Love and Hate,' a stalking, foreboding piece characteristic of Moncur’s composing at this time, draws from McLean a solo of tremendous depth and subtlety. This is McLean at his most moving. While he cannot entirely repress his native exultation, here he fits it into a larger picture that lives up to the title of the piece. Moncur’s solo provides something of a contrast; is he playing 'hate' to Jackie’s 'love'? Whatever, this track alone makes the album.

'Esoteric' is slightly more upbeat Moncur, with the two horn men and Hutcherson exploring a rich palette of moods. The lightest piece on the album is (of course!) the one number penned by McLean, 'Kahlil the Prophet,' and Moncur’s closer, 'Riff Raff,' is relatively conventional compared to his other compositions. But however upbeat anything on this album gets, there is nothing here that matches the magnificent jubilation reached by McLean and Lee Morgan on some of their collaborations. McLean’s destination here seems to be a vein of thoughtful music with a greater breadth of communicative power than was common in much of the music of the time.

Of course, the search for the same destination motivated the 'outside' explorations of John Coltrane and a host of others in the same years. McLean, for all the self-advertising of his own adventurousness in the titles of his early Sixties albums ( Let Freedom Ring, One Step Beyond, and this one), actually never went as far over the line into 'free' playing as did Trane or Ornette. Destination...Out! never approaches the startling unconventionality of those masters, but it succeeds in integrating 'out' elements into the overall musical framework, and is richly satisfying on its own terms.“ (Robert Spencer, AllAboutJazz)

Jackie McLean, alto saxophone
Grachan Moncur III, trombone
Bobby Hutcherson, vibes
Larry Ridley, bass
Roy Haynes, drums

Recorded on September 20, 1963 at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Recorded and remastered by Rudy Van Gelder Produced by Alfred Lion

Digitally remastered

Jackie McLean
has long had his own sound, played slightly sharp and with great intensity; he is recognizable within two notes. McLean was one of the few bop-oriented players of the early '50s who explored free jazz in the '60s, widening his emotional range and drawing from the new music qualities that fit his musical personality.

The son of guitarist John McLean (who played guitar with Tiny Bradshaw), Jackie started on alto when he was 15. As a teenager he was friends with such neighbors as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins. He made his recording debut with Miles Davis in 1951 and the rest of the decade could be considered his apprenticeship. McLean worked with George Wallington, Charles Mingus, and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (1956-1958). He also participated on a string of jam session-flavored records for Prestige and New Jazz which, due to the abysmal pay and his developing style, he later disowned. Actually they are not bad but pale in comparison to McLean's classic series of 21 Blue Note albums (1959-1967). On sessions such as One Step Beyond and Destination Out, McLean really stretches and challenges himself; this music is quite original and intense yet logical. McLean also appeared as a sideman on some sessions for Blue Note (most notably with Tina Brooks, acted in the stage play The Connection (1959-1961), and led his own groups on a regular basis. By 1968, however, he was moving into the jazz education field and other than some SteepleChase records from 1972-1974 (including two meetings with his early idol Dexter Gordon) and an outing for RCA (1978-1979), McLean was less active as a player during the '70s. However in the '80s Jackie McLean returned to a more active playing schedule (sometimes with his son René McLean on tenor), recording for Triloka, Antilles, and most recently (with a renewed relationship) with Blue Note -- without losing the intensity and passion of his earlier days. (Scott Yanow)

This album contains no booklet.