Back in the 70s and 80s, for five bucks you could go into one of half a dozen jazz clubs any night of the week and catch a first class set or two. LA was filled with studio cats looking for a venue to work out there chops at night. Trumpeter Bobby Shew was making a nice living at the time, as well as the other guys on this 1981 recording, Gordon Brisker/ts-fl, Bill Mays/p-key, Bob Magnusson/b, Dick Berk/dr-timb and David Levine/cong, and they got together for a session that mixes originals and covers with a mix of electric and acoustic that worked perfectly well back in the day before the Neo-Conservative movement came along and froze jazz creativity into a time warp.
“Olvera Street” mixes muted horn and flute into a festive and upbeat latin groove supported by Mays’ keyboards, and Levine percolates with an infectious pulse on “Surprise Samba” . Flute and horn blend like butter and honey on waffles on the sweet “No Hurry” while the bluesy and s ltry title piece has both tenorist Brisker and trumpeter Shew in big toned moods. Shew bops with delight with the kinetic rhythm team on “The Dancing Bishop” and glistens with Mays on the sublime read of Clifford Brown’s “La Rue”. Modern, creative, swinging, un-derivative…does anyone play like this anymore?!?
https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/bobby-shew-albums/53536-play-song.html