Review of Frank Hewitt / We Loved You in Jazz Review (UK), issue 55, April 2004.

Hewitt played at Smalls, a New
York club which flourished after
the repeal of the cabaret card
system, two or three nights a week
for nine years. These trios represent
working groups, and they recorded
these sessions ''as live". The first
five tracks, with Lovelace, were
recorded on May 16th, those with
Rosenfeld on June Sth 2001.

Hewitt died on Sth September 2002.
Since the majors ignored him,
friends and colleagues established a
label to release music by him and
other members of the Smalls
community. This release is puffed
as "the first volume of historic
recordings" and I very much hope
it will, indeed, prove to be the start
of a series. I only wish this could
have happened in Hewitt's lifetime.

I love his choice of songs. When I
first got into modern jazz, every LP
or gig included one of these tunes,
and usually three or four of them.
They have now been ousted from
their place in the repertoire by
newer, usually lesser, standards.
The only original is Hewitt's
"Frank's Blues", standing for all
those other bop twelve-bars, classic
or otherwise, that leavened every
session. Hewitt's playing brings
back all the enchantment of that
honeymoon period before I became
such a jaded old curmudgeon that I
turned to criticising albums in a
specialist magazine ... in 1966.

Hewitt cited Bud Powell, Thelonious
Monk and the somewhat neglected
Elmo Hope as his main influences,
but Tatum and Hines sometimes
make an appearance, too. Like
Monk, Hewitt can encapsulate the
essence of a piece with a string of
chords. He is a very lyrical player,
one of those musicians who insists
on giving as much weight to verses
as to choruses. He has a bright,
crisp right hand, but you'll find it
unusually rewarding to focus on
his Jeft-hand work, which goes
beyond supporting rhythm and
thickened harmonies. This is most
readily noticeable on "I Remember
You", where the counterpoint of
signpost chords and complementary
melodies is especially potent.

Finally, a nod to Roland, who is an
interesting soloist, almost always
using the bow for solos, sometimes
shifting rapidly from arco to
pizzicato within a single phrase,
and occasionally throwing in some
humming to boot.

--Barry Witherden