Don Patterson “Satisfaction!”

I’d never heard of Don Patterson, but I love jazz organ, it’s on Prestige Records, there’s liner notes, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, it’s a trio (Don Patterson, organ; Jerry Byrd, guitar; Billy James, drums), looks to be from 1966, and it must have been in a cheap bin, where you never see good jazz. The cover photo of (I assume) Don Patterson is funny—dark suit and skinny tie, cigarette—and he’s standing in front of some trees, like he’s in a forest. It makes no sense, but most of my favorite album covers don’t. The liner notes, by Bob Porter, are pretty entertaining. He gives some background on Patterson—he played with some “difficult” guys like Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, and so forth. Then he goes on and on about controversy in the jazz world over jazz organ music, which I wasn’t really aware of—I’ve just always loved what I’ve heard. Apparently, some purists found it either too commercial or too weird or maybe both at the same time, which really doesn’t make sense. Or perhaps they thought the organ was a gimmick? You try moving one of those things (the big Hammonds), they’re the size a Buick. And you think your done, and you’ve still got to move that Leslie speaker, the size of a Chevy. And don’t forget the bench. And pedals.

There are five tracks on the record—all of them long, except for the title track (kind of buried in the middle of Side B), a cover the Rolling Stones hit from the year before—and it’s actually 20 seconds shorter than the Stones song. Other than the melody, it has virtually nothing to do with it—sounds like it’s played with one hand (the other hand holding their noses)—no doubt hoping to sell some records with the title. The rest of the songs are much more satisfying—they’re all really good, particularly the two Don Patterson compositions on Side A. Including the one with the best title: “Bowl Full of Yok”—which would have been a better name for the album. There’s a lot of insane organ on this record, as you would hope. There’s at least one drum solo, and some really nice jazz guitar, including some solos. I spent a frantic few minutes (hours) picking The Big Brain about this guitarist, Jerry Byrd. I recently bought a jazz guitar record by Charlie Byrd—not the same dude. Well, there’s also Joseph, Donald, Jonathan, Steve, you-name-it Byrd—all musicians. And The Byrds had so many lineups, there must have been a Byrd among the Clarks and the Parsonses. But most significantly, there’s a Jerry Byrd who is a guitarist who I recently reviewed in these pages—but it was a Hawaiian music record, and he plays steel guitar—it just doesn’t make any since that this could be him. Finally, I found a brief listing for the jazz guitarist from Pittsburgh, who I believe this is—the drummer’s also from Pittsburgh. Both are excellent on this record. Don Patterson was born in Columbus, Ohio—he died relatively young (52), but put out a bunch of records, all with pretty good titles: (“Hip Cake Walk,” “Four Dimensions,” “Funk You!”). Probably any or all of them are worth checking out.

2.3.23