Black/Note

Bassist Mark Shelby first learned in 1990 of the World Stage, a Los Angeles performance space financed by drummer Billy Higgins and regularly hosting open jam sessions. That August he encountered trumpeter Richard Grant there, and by October drummer Willie Jones III together with altoist James Mahone had also become part of the circle. Nightly sessions running from eight o’clock in the evening until four in the morning enabled the musicians to forge a cohesive ensemble identity. Their debut performances occurred in January 1991; among the pianists who appeared with them in those early months were Eric Reed and Kenneth Crouch. By the time the band entered the studio for its initial release, 43rd and Degnan on the World Stage label, Ark Sano had become the regular pianist. Grant departed in February 1992 after receiving a scholarship to Rutgers, leaving the group briefly as a quartet until Gilbert Castellanos joined on trumpet.

In the middle of the decade Black/Note, alongside the B Sharp Quartet, attracted notice as a strong hard bop and post-bop unit made up of young Black musicians in Los Angeles committed to acoustic jazz. The ensemble subsequently recorded Jungle Music for Columbia and Nothin’ but the Swing for Impulse, yet Castellanos’s departure diminished its distinct character and reduced it to a less individual, part-time quartet.