You would think that a tribute to a jazz icon would make you want to delve deeper into the artist. If that was the attempt of Manu Codjia/g, Geraldine Laurent/as and Christophe Marguet/dr, this disc does that just about as successfully as Bill Clinton does for marital fidelity. Songs like “Moose the Mooche,” “Billie’s Bounce” and “Hot House” should be no brainer vehicles for some sort of celebration or re-analysis, but in these hands it comes across like decompositions more than anything else. Laurent’s alsto has an acceptable tone, but he seems to keep colliding with Codjia’s edgy strings. A real head scratcher here. If y
ou want to really look for Bird, get some old copies of Supersax and see what the fuss was all about.
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