1963 · Album
Let Freedom Ring
Recorded 1962 · Blue Note · Personnel: Jackie McLean (alto saxophone), Walter Davis Jr. (piano), Herbie Lewis (bass), Billy Higgins (drums)
Billy Higgins Holds the Whole Thing Together
A saxophonist's showcase that works because the rhythm section never overplays its hand.
The first thing you notice about Let Freedom Ring (1962) is how much space there is. Jackie McLean's alto sax gets room to breathe, to stretch a line, to sit with an idea—and that breathing room comes from Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins doesn't follow McLean; he listens. He leaves gaps. A lot of drummers at the time filled every pocket of silence, but Higgins understands that less is more, that a well-placed cymbal wash or a quick snare accent can do more work than constant activity. Watch how he handles a slow blues—he's almost invisible until he isn't, and when he enters, it matters.
This quartet with pianist Walter Davis Jr. and bassist Herbie Lewis serves McLean's modernist take on bebop without fussing over it. The standards and originals here sit somewhere between hard bop and the free exploration McLean would lean into later. Tracks breathe like chamber jazz, but they swing like a working band. AllMusic reviewer Steve Huey ranked it among McLean's strongest efforts overall, and it's the album that opened doors at Blue Note for other artists pushing similar ideas forward.
This is the right place to start with McLean. It's not his debut, but it captures him at a point where his ideas are clear and his playing is direct—no excess, no showing off. He sounds like a musician who knows exactly what he wants to say.
Who's playing
Where next?
More by Jackie McLean
All 46 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
