''Midnight Mood'' is a 1967

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by Mark Murphy. ''Midnight Mood'' is the 10th album by American jazz vocalist Mark Murphy. It was recorded when Murphy was 35 years old and released by the

SABA Saba may refer to: Places * Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea * Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras * Șaba or Șaba-Târg, the Romanian name for Shabo, a village in Ukraine * Saba, ...

/ MPS Records label in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

in 1968. The release is a mix of standards and original songs from members of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band.

Background

Murphy had been living in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

for four years by the time he recorded ''Midnight Mood''. Members of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band formed Murphy's backing group for this recording. Murphy had been touring Europe and playing '' Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club'' in London with them.

Recording

Producer Gigi Campi (Pierluigi Campi), an Italian architect, Cologne restauranteur, jazz concert and festival organizer, helped found the Clarke-Boland Big Band in the early 1960s. Campi produced many jazz recordings including " Tough Tenors” by

Johnny Griffin John Arnold Griffin III (April 24, 1928 – July 25, 2008) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Nicknamed "the Little Giant" for his short stature and forceful playing, Griffin's career began in the mid-1940s and continued until the month of ...

& Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, “ All Smiles” by The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, and “ November Girl” by

Carmen McRae Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1920 – November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer. She is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century and is remembered for her behind-the-beat phrasing and ironic interpretati ...

and The Kenny Clarke Francy Boland Big Band, all on MPS. But he also founded MoD Records and worked on other labels. Campi assembled an eight-man band to accompany Murphy on this recording.

Kenny Clarke Kenneth Clarke Spearman (January 9, 1914January 26, 1985), known professionally as Kenny Clarke and nicknamed Klook, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. A major innovator of the bebop style of drumming, he pioneered the use of the ride ...

plays drums and

Francy Boland François Boland (6 November 1929 – 12 August 2005) was a classically trained Belgian jazz composer and pianist. He first gained notice in 1949 and worked with Belgian jazz greats like Bobby Jaspar, and in 1955 he joined Chet Baker's quintet. ...

plays piano and did the arrangements. The members of the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band providing backup include

Ronnie Scott Ronnie Scott Order of the British Empire, OBE (born Ronald Schatt; 28 January 1927 – 23 December 1996) was a British jazz Tenor saxophone, tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner. He co-founded Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London's Soho district ...

on tenor saxophone, Jimmy Deuchar on trumpet,

Sahib Shihab Sahib Shihab (born Edmund Gregory; June 23, 1925 – October 24, 1989) was an American jazz and hard bop saxophonist (baritone, alto, and soprano) and flautist. He variously worked with Luther Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Fletcher Henderson, Tad ...

on flute and baritone saxophone, Åke Persson on trombone, Derek Humble on alto saxophone, and former Ellington bassist Jimmy Woode. Murphy contributes lyrics to Jimmy Deuchar's "Why and How" and Francy Boland's "Hopeless". Years later DJ

Gilles Peterson Gilles Jérôme Moehrle MBE (; born 28 September 1964), better known as Gilles Peterson (), is a broadcaster, DJ, record label and festival owner. He is renowned for his genre-defying approach to music with jazz at its core. From this base he ...

would turn "Why and How", a soul-jazz rare groove, into a dance floor smash in the 1980s and help revive Murphy's career. ''Jump for Joy'' is a

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D ...

1941 stage musical and Murphy opens the album singing the title tune a cappela before the band joins in and he follows with scat improvisation. Clarke and Woode's "I Don't Want Nothin' " is an up-tempo bluesy arrangement. The ballad " Alone Together" is from a 1932 Broadway show '' Flying Colors'' by

Arthur Schwartz Arthur Schwartz (November 25, 1900 – September 3, 1984) was an American composer and film producer, widely noted for his songwriting collaborations with Howard Dietz. Biography Early life Schwartz was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New ...

and

Howard Dietz Howard Dietz (September 8, 1896 – July 30, 1983) was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist, best remembered for his songwriting collaboration with Arthur Schwartz. According to historian Stanley Green, Dietz and Schwartz were "most cl ...

and is taken at a quick tempo featuring brushwork by Clarke and a muted trumpet solo from Jimmy Deuchar. Åke Persson is featured on trombone on Cy Coleman's "You Fascinate Me So". Several of the remaining ballads feature Boland on piano. "Sconsolato" is a slow Latin groove, Murphy's first of many to follow on subsequent releases.

Reception

The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1 ...

'' assigns the album 4 stars (meaning, excellent: a record of substantial merit, though flawed in some essential way). In the review Andy Rowan writes that ''Midnight Mood'' boasts "inventive, full-bodied performances that create a feeling of cohesiveness" proving "that when the glitter is stripped away Mark Murphy is a singer of great power, depth and skill". '' The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' gives the album 3 stars (meaning, good, by the artist's usual standards and therefore recommended.) The ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

'' guide assigns 4.5 stars. Murphy biographer Peter Jones includes ''Midnight Mood'' in his list of essential top 10 Mark Murphy albums. In his book ''This is Hip: The Life of Mark Murphy,'' Jones says that ''Midnight Mood'' is one of the best albums Murphy ever made. He writes, "Murphy is in devastatingly fine voice on these tracks, relaxed and swinging with the kind of material he loved and knew well". Peter Quinn, writing a review for ''

Jazzwise ''Jazzwise'' is a British monthly magazine focused on jazz, launched in 1997. The magazine covers a range of jazz sub-genres and provides news coverage, a national gig guide, a jazz-on-film page, feature articles, and a review section that evalua ...

'' magazine, gives the album 4 stars. He writes, "''Midnight Mood'' is a must-hear recording, not just for Murphy die-hards but all lovers of vocal jazz...the 10-track album is outstandingly good on all fronts: dynamic control, time-bending phrasing, plus an immense depth of feeling." Christopher Louden praised the album in his ''

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' was an American print magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade ...

'' review writing, "Like so many of his vocal contemporaries, Mark Murphy was struggling in the late 1960s, jumping from label to label for scattershot projects that garnered little attention. Best among them is 1968’s ''Midnight Mood'' (actually released on SABA, which became MPS), vital connective tissue bridging Murphy’s progress from Sinatra-styled crooner to the most boldly dynamic vocalist of his generation". He praises Murphy's interpretations of “Alone Together”, “My Ship”, “Jump for Joy”, “You Fascinate Me So”, “I Get Along Without You Very Well” and “I Don’t Want Nothin".

Track listing

# "Jump for Joy" (

, Sid Kuller,

Paul Francis Webster Paul Francis Webster (December 20, 1907 – March 18, 1984) was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and was nominated sixteen times for the award. Life and career Webster was born in New York City, United S ...

) – 4:46 #"I Don't Want Nothin' " (

, Jimmy Woode) – 2:53 #"Why and How" ( Jimmy Deuchar, Mark Murphy) – 3:02 # " Alone Together" (

) – 3:03 # "You Fascinate Me So" (

Cy Coleman Cy Coleman (born Seymour Kaufman; June 14, 1929 – November 18, 2004) was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist. Life and career Coleman was born Seymour Kaufman in New York City, to Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jewish parents, an ...

Carolyn Leigh Carolyn Leigh (August 21, 1926 – November 19, 1983) was an American lyricist for Broadway, film, and popular songs. She is best known as the writer with partner Cy Coleman of the pop standards "Witchcraft" and " The Best Is Yet to Come". W ...

) – 4:14 # "Hopeless" (Francy Boland, Murphy) – 4:31 # "Sconsolato" (Woode) – 3:51 # " My Ship" (

Kurt Weill Kurt Julian Weill (; ; March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for hi ...

Ira Gershwin Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershovitz; December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the ...

) – 3:54 # "Just Give Me Time" (Boland, Woode) – 2:39 # " I Get Along Without You Very Well" (

Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor, author and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s and 1940s, a ...

, Jane Brown Thompson) – 4:46

Personnel

; Performance * Mark Murphy – vocals * Jimmy Woode – bass *

– piano, arranger *

– drums * Derek Humble – alto saxophone *

– baritone saxophone, flute *

– tenor saxophone * Åke Persson – trombone * Jimmy Deuchar – trumpet ; Production * Wolfgang Hirschmann –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

* Gigi Campi – producer * Heinz Bähr – original artwork * Keith Lightbody – liner notes * Stefan Franzen – reissue liner notes

References

External links

*
Midnight Mood
' at

MusicBrainz MusicBrainz is a MetaBrainz project that aims to create a collaborative music database that is similar to the freedb project. MusicBrainz was founded in response to the restrictions placed on the CDDB, Compact Disc Database (CDDB), a database for ...

(release group) *
Midnight Mood
' at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

(master release) *
Midnight Mood
' at

(release) * Mark Murphy in MusicHound Jazz a
Internet Archive
* Mark Murphy in
The Penguin Guide to Jazz
' at Internet Archive * Mark Murphy in
The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide
' at Internet Archive *
Ted Pankin Mark Murphy interviews and liner notes
*
Kenny Clarke
at Internet Archive *
Midnight Mood
' a
MPS
official website {{Authority control 1968 albums Mark Murphy (singer) albums MPS Records albums