This Here is Bobby Timmons

Released in January 1960, This Here is Bobby Timmons narrowly missed joining albums like Kind of Blue, Mingus Ah Um, Time Out and Shape of Jazz To Come in the historic canon of Jazz in 1959. Now truthfully it wasn’t so much a classic in 1960 either and Bobby Timmons would never truly reach legend status. But, he was a soul jazz pioneer and if soul jazz, was never quite a cerebral enough genre for the critics, Timmons was always a well respected pianist amongst both jazz writers and fans. Classic or not, This Here was a very anticipated album that offered a lot of promise for Timmons profile — promise that the 25 year old pianist would sadly never totally fulfill.

But, Timmons, who had been active since the mid 50s, earned an album title like This Here in the classic year of 1959. As member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Timmons wrote the album Moanin’s self-titled hit in 1958 and released it in January ‘59. It became an instant-standard and was in the repertoire of many artists almost immediately. Perhaps more impressive fortunates came in San Francisco that October, when Cannonball Adderley Quintet recorded at the Jazz Workshop and released his landmark live album before the turn of the year. The album was fantastic, essential jazz. But it was also a pioneering live record. A technical innovation in live recording. And it opened with Cannonball Adderley’s famous banter introducing Timmons by name, attributing him as the writer of track 1, the now famous “This Here.”

And this here is why This Here’s album cover highlights Timmons as pianist-composer of “This Here” “Moanin’” and “Dat Dere.” “Dat Dere” wasn’t a hit yet, but it would be. In fact, all of the aforementioned songs became either jazz standards or minor pop hits. Lyrics were added and vocal versions were created, making them more palatable to more refined jazz audiences. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, the legendary vocal trio, famously recorded versions of “Moanin’” and “This Here.” The jazz-obsessed might know Sheila' Jordan’s vocal version of “Dat Dere” but everyone knows Tony Bennett, and he recorded it too in his latter day career. Not even Dave Brubeck had that type of resume outside of “Take Five” — a song his sax player wrote. Timmons was a major composer. And although he didn’t write all the songs on This Here is Bobby Timmons, his rendition of a classic like “Lush Life” is truly beautiful. And in either case, it is worth listening for his 3 original classics alone.

Timmons will never be a name like Miles Davis or Charles Mingus. But that’s fine. This is 100% essential, totally enjoyable, simple, to-the-point jazz music.

And how soulful it is. Thanks, Bobby.