Milt Jackson was born on January 1, 1923. Jackson was a jazz vibraphonist who had a long and distinguished career as a solo recording artist, but who is perhaps best remembered as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet. For forty years, the MJQ was one of the world’s finest small jazz ensembles, and it’s their work and career that we focus on today.
In the 1940s, it was common during a performance by a big band for most of the band to take a short break, while a small ensemble stayed on stage to keep the audience entertained. Such small group performances are where the MJQ originated. In 1946, the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie’s band—John Lewis on piano, Milt Jackson on vibraphone, Ray Brown on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums—began playing such performances, and found that they enjoyed working together.
They left Gillespie’s band and made their first recording in 1951, as the Milt Jackson Quartet. Ray Brown left the group shortly thereafter, wanting to spend more time working with his wife, Ella Fitzgerald. Brown and Fitzgerald continued to work together, even after their divorce in 1953; Brown had a long, successful career, including about 15 years with the Oscar Peterson Trio.
Percy Heath took over as the group’s new bass player, and in 1952, the quartet incorporated as the Modern Jazz Quartet. Lewis later said that “It was an arbitrary name, the quickest name we could get cleared for a corporation in New York state. It had nothing to do with a description of the music.”
Lewis, who became the musical director of the group, writing most of their original music, had a very clear vision for the group. They were to be four equal members, with no dominant soloist. They usually performed in concert halls, not nightclubs, and wore tuxedos. The goal was elegance.
Lewis’s musical style was influenced by his classical training. His music was refined, composed rather than improvised, and often featured intricate fugues and counterpoint. The MJQ skillfully found a balance between that style and Jackson’s more improvisatory, blues-based solos. The critic Francis Davis wrote that “Lewis performed a feat of magic only a handful of jazz writers, including Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, had ever pulled off—he reconciled the composer's belief in predetermination with the improviser's yen for free will."
The MJQ had its first major booking, at the New York jazz club Birdland, in the fall of 1953, followed by appearances in a few other large cities. They recorded the album Django; the title track, composed by Lewis, became one of the group’s signature tunes.
Kenny Clarke left the MJQ in 1955 because he thought that Lewis’s conservatism didn’t suit his own musical style. "I wouldn't be able to play the drums my way again after four or five years of playing eighteenth-century drawing-room jazz," he said. Like Ray Brown before him, Clarke went on to a long career, moving to France and leading one of Europe’s major big bands.
Clarke was replaced by Connie Kay on drums, and this lineup—Lewis, Jackson, Heath, and Kay—is the classic lineup by which the MJQ is best known. The first album featuring this lineup was 1955’s Concorde.
The MJQ made its first European tour in 1956, and recorded several important albums in the late 1950s, including live albums with clarinetist Jimmy Guiffre and saxophonist Sonny Rollins, and Lewis’s score for the 1957 French film No Sun in Venice.
They continued to record prolifically in the 1960s, releasing one or two albums every year. They recorded albums with guitarist Laurindo Almeida, and with the vocal group The Swingle Singers. Lewis began to explore writing for larger forces, creating pieces that paired the MJQ with an orchestra, or with a big band. In 1968, the MJQ became the only jazz act to sign with the Beatles’ new label, Apple Records, for whom they recorded two albums.
Milt Jackson quit the group in 1974. He was growing frustrated that the quartet, despite its critical acclaim and prestige, wasn’t making more money, and he wanted more time to work on projects outside the quartet. The group originally avoided performing during the summer but began accepting invitations to summer jazz festivals in the late 1960s. The MJQ performed a farewell concert in November 1974.
That wasn’t the end of the group, though. They did an occasional concert, rarely going more than a year or so without gathering, and they formally reunited in 1981. They focused more on touring in the 1980s, recording less often. Their 80s work includes a tribute to Duke Ellington, and another of Lewis’s classical collaborations, this one with the New York Chamber Symphony.
Drummer Connie Kay suffered a stroke in 1992, and Mickey Roker filled in for him as necessary during his recovery; both Kay and Roker are heard on the 40th-anniversary celebration, MJQ and Friends. After Kay’s death in 1994, the quartet performed more infrequently, and Percy Heath’s brother, Albert, took over as their drummer. The Modern Jazz Quartet disbanded for good in 1997.
The three surviving members of the quartet’s classic lineup continued their individual careers. Milt Jackson, who had always done the most outside performing and recording, recorded more than 50 albums, and continued to work until his death in 1999.
John Lewis was not quite as prolific a recording artist, but did record some albums (note that there’s more than one musician named “John Lewis,” so you’ll have to pick and choose to find the right one), in addition to writing a few more film scores. He also continued to teach selected students until he died in 2001.
And Percy Heath began recording with his brothers, drummer Albert and saxophonist Jimmy, during the MJQ’s hiatus in the late 1970s. He died in 2005.
More of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s music is available for streaming at Hoopla.