Back in the late 1970s and early 80s, Los Angeles had a thriving local jazz scene. There were tons of great clubs, usually free or for a low cover charge, and for a beginning jazz fan places like Donte’s, Concert By The Sea, The Baked Potato, Carmelo’s Pasquales featured jazz cats that made a living in the studios by day and jammed by night. Ah! Life was so easy!
One of the local giants was tenor saxist Jay Migliori who was best known known for being part of the popular Supersax, but also was in Woody Herman’s band (among a ton others) when not being on one of thousands of studio recording for the likes of The Beach Boys, Neil Diamond or Leonard Cohen. This 1984 album, hidden in a garage for decades, finds the warm tone tenorist in fantastic form, sounding a bit like Dexter Gordon here and Stan Getz there with a group of reliable Angelenos in Conte Condoli/tp, Joe Lettieri/p, Jim Crutcher/b and Chiz Harris/dr.
His inherent sense of swing is evident on an only child, tasty take of Jimmy Giuffre’s classic “Four Brothers while he smooths out John Coltrane’s “Equinox”. He handles Monk material like “Ask Me Now” with class and style, and his own material like “Blue Jay” and “Davana” are straight-ahead gems. He’s got a logic to his solos, a tinge of blue in the tone, and it just shows how the local scene in So Cal has deteriorated. As the Bible says, “When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
A glimpse of life before musical Pompeii