Here are a pair of reissues of horn players that got bitten by the bebop bug, and thankfully never recovered.Best known for his stint with Quincy Jones’ Big Band, Roger Guerin had a formidable career in Paris, being first call to sit in with the likes of Don Byas, Django Reinhardt and James Moody. This collection of sessions from the 50s has him co-leading a hard bop team with Benny Golson, leading his own quartet along with Christian Grros/dr, Pierre Michelot/b and Martial Solal/p and fitting in as a sideman for guitarist Jimmy Raney or saxist James Moody.
The sessions with Moody have the Parker disciple bouncing to “Deep Purple” and swooning on “More Than You Know, and with Raney at the helm the team gets more lithe and open sounding with Guerin and Raney doing winders with “Too Marvelous For Words” and luminescent on “What’s New.” Golson’s band sounds a lot like an Art Blakey session with Bobby Timmons at the piano, and the quintet does material from the drummer’s songbook with muscular reads of “Blues March,” I Remember Clifford” and a hot “Moann.” Guerin mixes the lyricism of Miles Davis with the gentleness of Chet Baker. You’re gonna like this cat!
Bobby Shew cut his teeth with big bands lead by Woody Herman, Buddy Rich and Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin. His solo album here from 1979 is an absolute delight, teaming with LA session cats Gordon Brisker/ts-fl, Bill Mays/p-key, Bob Magnusson/b and Steve Schaeffer/dr. Shew’s horn glistens like a full moon on a gorgeous “A Child Is Born” and “She’s Gone Again,” while bopping on ”Class Reunion” and the hip “Navarro Flats.” Mays’ keyboards add exoticsm to the fusion “Kachina” and soulful “Run Away” rounding out this session with a mix of the traditional and (for the time) modern. A real winner, and he still teaches classes while intermittently still having a gig or two in the City of Angels. Underappreciated.
Fresh Sound Records