Oh! So this is what a saxophone is supposed to sound like!
UK-based Avid Jazz is putting both Mosaic Records and Sony Legacy to SHAME. They put out first rate reissues much more often than the former, and their pricing is a bargain compared to the latter. They are bringing to light some tremendously important sessions from the era when swing was turning to bop and making a veer towards West Coast Cool. Here are three discs that I’m going to be playing until they put me in the pine box:
Gene Krupa made his name (and career) as the guy who put big band drumming on the map with his seminal work with Benny Goodman and his own swinging orchestra with Anita O’Day and Roy Eldridge. These sessions from the 50s have him in a variety of small group settings: a trio with Teddy Napoleon/p and Charlie Ventura, sextets with Charlie Shavers/tp, Bill Harris/tb, Ben Webster/ts, Eddie Davis/ts (A rare treat) Teddy Wilson/p and Willie Smith/as as the featured stars, and a tasty quartet with Eddie Shu/ts (who? We’ll get to that), Dave McKenna/p and Wendell Marshall.
Krupa’s playing ranges from exuberant traditional to smooth as silk swing-bop on these sessions. The keys to the kingdom here are the various tenor players. Well, Willie Smith’s alto on stuff like “Coronation Hop” is also a timeless joy, but when you’ve got Ben Webster growling like a hungry lion on “Midget” and “I’m Coming Virginia,” you’ll wonder why anyone bothered to play after him. Then, you’ve got Charlie Ventura mixing his blend of Hawkins and Young on material like “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone” or “Star Dust” that will make you beg for it to never end. Meanwhile, these two obscure tenor guys, Eddie Davis and Eddie Shu will get you scrounging for everything they ever did, as they’ve both been weaned on Lester Young’s mouthpiece with a Ben Webster chaser. Breathy, meaty, and swinging like there’s no tomorrow, Davis turns “ You Are Too Beautiful” into apple butter.When Shu takes on “Little Girl Blues” and “As Long As I Live” with his tenor and clarinet respectively, you’ll be sighing in wonder. Amazing music!
Flip Phillips was a devotee of Lester Young as well (and who shouldn’t be?) and these 2 discs have his wonderful late 40s and early 50s sessions with boppers like Howard McGhee/tp, Ray Brown/b, Max Roach/dr and Hank Jones/p as well as holdovers from the swing era such as Harry Edison/tp, Bill Harris/tb, Buddy Rich/dr, Charlie Shavers/tp and Freddie Green/g. The 47 session with McGhee and Jones have a lovely take of “My Old Flame,” while Phillips swoons with Brown and Jones on “But Beautiful” in a ’49 recording. The trio sessions with Hank Jones and Buddy Rich from 1952 (with Ray Brown joining in for a few tunes) contain some of the swingingest stuff you’ll ever come across, with “Lover Come Back to Me” or “Flip’s Boogie” and “Carioca” making you wonder why you’d ever want to listen to modern sax playing.
Bud Shank was one of those guys that made a healthy living in the LA studios playing jingles and TV show themes. He also started the bossa nova movement, contrary to Getz fans’ arguments, and was one of the main cats in the then-controversial West Coast Jazz genre which emphasized style over heat. These 4 sessions from the mid 50s here find him on alto sax and flute for 3 of the sessions, and his horn has that lovely breathy sound on “Nature Boy” and “Walkin’” He teams up with Bob Cooper, who brigs his oboe, tenor and book of arrangements for some mellow musings on 50s TV theme shows like “Danny Boy” from The Danny Thomas Show and “A Romantic Guy” from The Bob Cummings Show. Some strings are used for a beautiful disc that has Shank blowing softly on “Deep Purple” and “You Are Too Beautiful.” The real charmer is when Shank switches to tenor and sounds hauntingly like Stan Getz as he leads a quartet with Claude Williamson/p, Don Prell/b and Chuck Flores/dr . His readings of “Blue Lou,” “Thou Swell” and “I Never Knew” are inspired and will make you wonder how we descended from here to Albert Ayler.
Avid Jazz Records