If you haven’t been alerted about the Naxos Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series, you are missing out on some of the best sounds that have been unearthed from the mines. His one is Volume 10, and all you’ll say after taking it in is one word, “MORE!”
With a rhythm section of Kenny Drew/p, Bo Stief/b and Ed Thigpen/dr tenor giants Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon mix generational sounds at a swinging concert at Aula Kantonsschule in Baden Switzerland in November 11, 1972. The six songs are evenly divided between solo spotlights for each Selmer and a joining together for a collection of tones.
And that’s the beauty of this album. These guys grew up in an age when the number one goal of a musician was to have one’s own sound. Long Tall Dexter is immediately identified by his lanky and booming sound on “Some Other Blues” and “Didn’t We” as he throws out more quotes than Bartletts. Webster growls like a contented lion during a ferocious “Blues In F” and purrs to perfection o “Sunday” as Stief and Drew take time to stretch out as well.
And then you get the summit meetings, with the tenor saxes sounding like molten gold on the Ellington chestnuts “In A Mellow Tone” and “Perdido.” It doesn’t matter that Webster comes from the swing era and Gordon was a proto-bopper. When the language is blues, standards or Ellington all labels are irrelevant, and simply the ideas and sounds are what matter, and the creativity and sounds from the soul convey a confidence in the simple virtuosity of musicianship that gimmicks, mindless chops or one upmanship is simply unnecessary. It’s timeless in the gracefulness of the lyricism. This is why you fell in love with jazz in the first place, or at least should have.