Here’s a nice record from 1977— Clifford Jarvis playing with Kenny Drew, along with Portland’s own David Friesen. Straightforward power bebop, you could call it. There’s so much uncontrived tradition in this, it makes you question if the young neo-bop classicists, who came along a few years later, were as needed as they claimed to be. That kind of music never went away. Blue Note could have just given those fat contracts to people like Drew. I guess they needed an advertising hook.
I haven’t listened to a whole lot of Jarvis’s playing. I associate him with Sun Ra, Freddie Hubbard, and Archie Shepp, but I never had many of the records he was on. His playing here is really strong, with a deep groove that reminds me of people like Al Foster and Art Taylor. Like them he’s assertive, but economical. There’s a little flavor of Roy Haynes in his soloing on the last tune.
Cillford Jarvis and Tony Williams were Alan Dawson's first students.
"One day, Tillmon Williams came to me and said, „I want you to hear something.“ He took me to his house, and there was this little ten-year-old kid sitting behind what looked like a 28″ bass drum. Tillmon said, „I want you to teach him.“ A couple of months later, Malcolm Jarvis came by and had his son play something on the pad for me. That’s actually how I got my first two students: Tony Williams and Clifford Jarvis. Clifford had great chops, but knew nothing. Tony had good instincts about time and meter, but no chops. Neither one of them could read. I worked on giving them the fundamentals of chops, reading, and rudiments."
That's very cool!