The continued renaissance of vintage vinyl albums continues with two essentials from Craft Recordings.
Ron Carter’s 1961 debut finds him in the left center company of Eric Dolphy/bcl-as-fl, Mal Waldron/p and the steady George Duvivier/b with Charles Persip/dr. Carter plays both bass and cello, and creates a dark mood with Persip’s drums for Dolphy’s floating flute on the memorable “Saucer Eyes”. On bass clarinet, Dolphy gets adventurous with Carter’s cello on the provocative “Rally´while the “Duet” with Duvivier is a laid back swinger. Lots of portends of his classic days to come with Miles and CTI. Worth listening to on a wide variety of levels.
Drummer Shelly Manne is heard on countless sessions as a sideman, as well as leading a wide variety of small groups on his own. Without a scintilla of doubt, one of his very best was his quintet with Joe Gordon/tp, Richie Kamuca/ts, Victor Feldman/p and Monty Budwig/b, captured on 5 albums of live recordings at the Blackhawk back in 1960. While not as well known as they should be, Kamuca and Gordon form a formidable and lyrical front line, with the Lester Young influenced Kamuca swinging the daylights out of “Our Delight” and “Poinciana” and Gordon deftly buoyant on “Summertime” and bopping on “Blue Daniel”. Everyone stretches out here a bit, and Manne is simply masterful as the driving force. If you want to know what “real” jazz is supposed to sound like, park your car right here.