Guitarist Nathen Page was at home in the modal jazz idiom of the 1970s and '80s. Though not especially well known by jazz fans due to his retreat to Florida in the 1970s and his limited-distribution releases on his Hugo Music label, Page was a remarkable player with a soulful, jagged feel. He straddled multiple genres, from the metallic sound found in rock to a warmer jazz style. [Photo above of Nathen Page]
Born in West Virginia in 1937, Page was self-taught and early on listened only to country music on the family radio. As a result, he was drawn to his mother's piano at age 8. After she had to leave the piano behind during one of the family's moves, Page's brother bought him a cheap guitar with cowboys and Native Americans painted on the instrument. His jazz exposure wouldn't come until later, when he was in the U.S. Army in the late 1950s.
Discharged at the dawn of the '60s, Page moved to Washington, D.C., where he he worked in a gas station and played in pop bands. In 1965, he joined organist Jimmy Smith and recorded on Smith's album The Boss, for Verve, in 1968. In the '70s, he played with a sizable number of top-name jazz artists, including Sonny Rollins, Rene McLean, Herbie Mann, Charles Tolliver and Roberta Flack. He recorded two albums with Doug Carn on the Black Jazz label and with Carn on Ovation.
Page was a fiery player, using a plastic thumb pick and groomed index-finger nail to peck at the strings. He formed his first quartet in 1974, and in '77 he launched Hugo Music. Two years later, he moved south to the Orlando, Fla., area to be a decent sized fish in a small jazz pond. In 1999, he moved to Bradenton, just north of Sarasota, from Altamonte Springs in central Florida. Page died at age 65 in 2003.
Now let me illustrate why Page was special:
Here's Page's solo on Invitation from his album Plays Pretty for the People...
Here's the full Invitation, with Charles Covington (p), Nathen Page (el-g), Steve Novosel (b) and Mike Smith (d) in 1979...
Here's Page with Charles Tolliver on Compassion from Tolliver's New Tolliver in 1977, with Charles Tolliver (tp), Nathen Page (g), Steve Novosel (b) and Alvin Queen (d)...
Here's Page with Jimmy Smith on Fingers from The Boss in 1968, with Jimmy Smith (org), Nathen Page (g) and Donald Bailey (d)...
And here's Page with Smith and Charles Crosby (d) in Denmark in June 1969 playing Ode to Billie Joe, Sonnymoon for Two, Days of Wine and Roses, Got My Mojo Workin' and Satin Doll...
And here's Afternoon in Africa, which pays tribute to Horace Silver's Ecaroh and John Lewis's Afternoon in Paris. The track appears on the super-rare and superb The Other Page, recorded in 1991. The album featured Michael Weiss (p), Nathen Page (g,el-p), David Williams (b) and Ben Riley (d). Michael Weiss recalls that the group recorded at Jimmy Madison’s home studio on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "We played a gig at Birdland in December 1991, probably after the CD was released. Too bad we didn’t work more after that. Nathen was a very nice guy, and it was an easy, smooth record date"...
A special thanks to Michael Weiss and Bill Kirchner.
