"I've fallen in love again," says Charles Earland after his live New Year's Eve broadcast from Chicago's Bop Shop over National Public Radio. His love for the real Hammond organ (which he partied with that night alongside trumpeter Lew Soloff and the young tenor sensation Eric Alexander) is most apparent. More importantly, this night proved once again that when the Mighty Burner sits down at the real McCoy, there's no other groover who can reach that temperature.
His recommitment to the original tone-wheel sound represents yet another reprise in a career that finds him always returning to his moneymaker. Charles once told me, "Whenever I record, I use a B-3, but I won't carry one. It's more furniture than instrument. The more sophisticated instruments today have the state-of-the-art sound and clarity and definition, and they're not that much trouble to carry around." He maintained this posture through the seventies and eighties, and on numerous recordings he did play some synthesizers. Until recently, he used either a single manual or combination keyboard setup that he could put in the trunk of his car. But things have come full circle today, as he now asks in his contracts that a Hammond B or C-3, along with two Leslie speakers, be juxtaposed on the bandstand. He not only loves the original sound again but knows that his fans do as well.
Charles's music began in his south Philadelphia high school dance band, where he and classmates Lew Tabackin, Pat Martino, and Frankie Avalon learned the basics. Charles started on alto saxophone and later added tenor and bari to his arsenal. (I had occasion to hear him play soprano in 1992 and was blown away!)
Being on such fertile musical soil as Philly offered him the chance to dabble in everything from pop record producing to playing with the heavy hitters. "As a saxophone player, I used to work with several local groups around town...I went on the road at sixteen years of age with a guy named Poncho Villa, and he really got me bit by the bug of being a musician."
The saxophone proved to be the vehicle by which Charles would reach a higher and more personal form of expression. He began to relate more to organ and used Gene Ludwig in his first working band. At seventeen he hooked up with another organist who stimulated this aural need even more.
"I was playing with Jimmy McGriff for like three and a half years, playing saxophone in his band, and I use to doodle with his organ on intermissions. I kinda taught myself as far as the Hammond is concerned."
With his formal training still on reeds, Charles began adapting what he knew to the organ. "I changed my sound just a little so I could have my own identity." Charles likes the first four drawbars, which give him that punch. "Plus my technique, it definitely separates me from the other cats because they have more of a slurred sound."
Charles says he's "attacking the instrument" when he plays and describes his sound as more staccato than legato. "I was good friends with Jimmy Smith, and he showed me a few things...Don Patterson showed me a few things and Larry Young Jr. and Groove Holmes did, too...I kinda took everything I learned from everybody else and combined it with my own music ability, which was with saxophone, and that gave me my sound...I played organ more like a horn man would."
While Don Patterson may have given Charles that typewriter feel in soloing, Jack McDuff was the model for the organ combo sound that Charles was after. "I kinda used the voicings of my small group to try and get the biggest sound possible, which I learned from Brother Jack McDuff. He used to take a small quartet and give it a big sound."
Charles made the switch to organ official in 1963 after encouragement from drummer Specs Wright. An initial recording was done for Choice Records in 1966 before a big break was offered to him in New York. "One of the first jobs I got was with Lou Donaldson, and I would say that Lou gave me my real start as an organist." Charles spiced up Lou's Hot Dog and Black and Proud sessions for Blue Note and stayed with him until 1969. Charles's real recording debut, however, came on Prestige, thanks to producer Bob Porter. (Historically, Bob has been one of the best friends the B-3 could have had.)
The smash album Black Talk lit the fire that Charles Earland has been fueling ever since. "Anybody that hears me knows it's me from the first four or five bars, man...I think I've got my own identity."
That he does, but deeper than that is the rare gift Charles possesses of being able to express himself in such a raw and visceral manner. His groove is infectious for us listeners and yet provides Charles with a true healing. "That's a really great way to express it, man, it's a healing...It heals you with some sort of spiritual satisfaction, and it just makes me feel all good inside, and it's a release...and I guess this is a gift from God, 'cause to be able to express yourself or be able to release your feelings is a gift and something that everybody can't do. I mean, you get people who have problems in life, and they never get a chance to release this...They have nervous breakdowns and things like that...and this is kinda like an outlet for me."
People close to Charles know the personal trials that he's experienced and fully understand the messages that are conveyed in his music. "I can't express things with words as clearly as I can with the music feel," he explains.
Charles's choice of side personnel has added much to his success. When it comes to reed players, he chooses them wisely and is particularly proud of current tenorist Eric Alexander. "Eric is going to be one of the greatest players around...I'm proud to say that I was one of the cats to give him a shot."
The Charles Earland Quartet of today is truly on fire. Right now they're burnin' Chicago down
again, but they should be comin' to your town soon. Fill your buckets with water and your ears
with groove!
Article courtesy of Pete Fallico