Every generation has a sax player who has a tone that everyone else dreams of. From Ben Webster to Lester Young to Stan Getz to Stanley Turrentine…ah don’t you just sigh thinking about those tenors? Today, the guy with the golden sound HAS to be Houston Person, who personifies a London Fog with his breathy and room filling sax. Here, he’s with Steve Nelson/vib, LaFayette Harris/p, Ray Drummond/b and Lewis Nash/dr and the place feels like a cigar lounge with fragrant smoke filling the room.
Just get a load of Person handling a mid tempo take of “My Funny Valentine” and creating a lava rich volcanic ash, while on the delicate “Gone Again” or the gentle bopper “Minton’s” he dances like smoke rings in the library. Steve Nelson compliments him throughout perfectly as a chiming foil, and gets to be featured on””Bewitched” and a gloriously soulful take of “Try a Little Tenderness.” Likewise Harris makes the samba reading of “Only Trust Your Heart” a treat, but you’re here for the red meat of a 4” steak, and Person serves it grilled on the loose necked “You Can’t Lose With The Blues” and the shuffling “The Song Has Ended.” This is the sound by which all other living tenors will be compared, judged and found wanting.
High Note Records