Herbie Nichols: The Third World

In a crowded 1950s jazz universe where every pianist had a distinct artistic footprint, Herbie Nichols was among the most singular. Often compared by critics to Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, Nichols wasn't really much like either keyboard giant. If anything, Nichols' brooding style probably had more in common with Hungarian composer-pianist Béla Bartók and the dark Russian composers he admired as a child. Now, with perspective, he sounds like the father of the churning, modal approach pioneered by piano giants McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s.

And yet, Nichols recorded only four albums as a leader, three of them for Blue Note. A prolific composer, Nichols wrote and registered upward of 170 songs but only half survived a flood in his father's Harlem apartment. His best-known work was Lady Sings the Blues, which was entitled Serenade when Billie Holiday first heard him play the song and before he added lyrics. Holiday recorded it in 1956 with the Tony Scott Orchestra.

All four of Nichols's albums are superb. The best entry point is The Prophetic Herbie Nichols Vol. 1,  Nichols's first album for Blue Note, with Al McKibbon (b) and Art Blakey (d). Recorded in May 1955, the album features one of my favorite originals by Nichols—The Third World—which he wrote in 1947. As the liner notes by Frank Kimbrough and Ben Allison point out, “Following the Nichols trademark piano/drums call-and-response intro, the tune unfolds in a standard AABA form. Herbie's ascending minor third harmony in the A section predates Coltrane's use of the same by 18 years."

I remember being astonished when I first heard Nichols's music after buying Mosaic's complete Blue Note recordings on LP in the 1990s. I was particularly struck by The Third World, a powerful, elephantine work that thunders along with wry twists and turns.

I spent yesterday writing while listening to the Nichols Blue Note set again. His piano and compositions, not to mention his sidemen (McKibbon and Blakey, drummer Max Roach and McKibbon, and bassist Teddy Kotick and Roach), are even more fascinating, bold and exciting than the last time I went through the music. It's somewhat puzzling why Nichols wasn't recorded more extensively and paired with leading horn players of the decade. I'm sure low sales and an unwillingness to tour is high on the list. But I can't help think that his music was so ahead of its time, most leading labels didn't get it. Now, the work all makes sense.

Herbie Nichols died from leukemia in 1963. He was 44.

JazzWax clips: Here's The Third World...



Here's Nichols' composition Lady Sings the Blues...



And here's Cro-Magnon Nights...