Five-Star Collection... Count Basie (December 1953 on Clef Records)

In the waning days of 1953, Count Basie walked into Fine Sound Studios in New York with a renewed sense of purpose. His orchestra had been reshaped, his sound modernized, and his partnership with Norman Granz was about to yield some of the most vital recordings of his postwar career. The sessions Basie led for Clef Records that December —one with his full orchestra, another with a stripped-down sextet— captured the perfect balance between swing tradition and the modern jazz vocabulary of the 1950s.

On December 12, 1953, Basie recorded the material that would later appear on the 12-inch LP Dance Session (Clef MG C-626). The orchestra featured what would soon become known as the "New Testament Band": Wendell Culley, Reunald Jones, Joe Newman, and Joe Wilder on trumpets; Henderson Chambers, Henry Coker, and Benny Powell on trombones; Marshall Royal (alto sax/clarinet), Frank Wess and Frank Foster (tenor saxes), Charlie Fowlkes (baritone), Freddie Green (guitar), Eddie Jones (bass), and Gus Johnson (drums). Basie alternated between piano and organ, bringing a fresh timbre to his already unmistakable swing.

The New York session yielded titles such as "Straight Life", "Basie Goes Wess", "Softly, With Feeling", "Peace Pipe", "Bubbles", "Right On", and "The Blues Done Come Back", with arrangements by Johnny Mandel, Frank Wess, Neal Hefti, and Ernie Wilkins.

Two additional tracks associated with Dance Session —"Blues Go Away!" and "Plymouth Rock"— had actually been recorded earlier that year, on August 13, 1953, in Los Angeles. These sessions, also produced by Granz, reveal the transitional phase of Basie's band just before it fully coalesced into the streamlined ensemble that would dominate his mid-1950s recordings.

Around the same time as the New York orchestra date, Basie also convened a sextet session for Clef, a relaxed and intimate date released on the 10-inch LP Count Basie Sextet (Clef MG C-146). With Joe Newman (trumpet), Paul Quinichette (tenor sax), Freddie Green (guitar), Gene Ramey (bass), and Buddy Rich (drums), the group tackled tunes such as "Basie Beat", "K.C. Organ Blues", "Blue and Sentimental" and "Count’s Organ Blues".

Taken together, these 1953 Clef sessions document a pivotal moment in Basie's evolution. His music regained the rhythmic drive and collective swing of the 1930s while embracing the cleaner, more sophisticated textures of the modern era. Dance Session and Count Basie Sextet stand as complementary portraits of a bandleader in transition —bridging tradition and innovation, reaffirming his roots while setting the course for the Basie sound that would define the following decade.

Down Beat reviewed these records as follows:

Count Basie

Dance Session

Every so often, like a dormant volcano, there will be an eruption on the jazz scene, during which one of the protagonists will insist (usually quite pedantically) that jazz was made to listen to and not to dance to. Like the volcanic eruptions which consist primarily of hot air and other gasses, these things subside, and we get back to normalcy and the clear, sweet air of swing, and we discover that it is quite simple to dance as well as listen to good jazz, because definitively jazz claims rhythm more as an ingredient of its composition than any other kind of music. 

Today, if anyone were asked who swings more than anyone else, the chances are nine out of nine would reply Count Basie. They would mean either Basie individually, Basie with a small group of musicians, or Basie with his big band. Slice it any way you like, look at it upside down or standing on  your head — Basie is still THE man of swing. It used to be in the olden days, various titles were handed to band leaders, such as "Mr. Rhythm", "Mr. Swing" and so on. Were that doubtful practice to be revived today, Basie would probably garner more crowns than any other leader playing jazz at this time.

That was reason then, for us to produce an album by the dance master of them all; but at the same time a man who preserves the identity of the soloists within his organization by giving them full rein to play as they choose when it comes their turn to stand up.

Basie also, years ago, and he has persisted today in that practice, saw the need for giving young, free-thinking arrangers full play to write as they thought the band should play. The best of these arrangers for Basie, and composers too, for they have written these pieces, are included in this album. They are: Johnny Mandel, Neal Hefti, Ernie Wilkins and Frank Wess. Johnny Mandel’s "Straight Life" is quite possibly, at least it is my nominee, the prettiest thing Basie has done in a decade. However, pressing it closely for second place beauty honors is the Hefti "Softly, With Feeling". There are the swinging, jumping, rollicking, happy tunes by Wilkins, Wess and some more by Hefti, but all in all it is the band that plays not only the blues, but plays with feeling, to paraphrase Neal Hefti, softly and/or loudly, but always tastefully. *Norman Granz (liner notes)* 

Most of these have already been reviewed as singles and have received ratings ranging from three to five stars. Gathered together in one well-recorded 12'' LP, the cumulative impact of thgis, the greatest big band in jazz, is too much!

Here is that rare combimnation of section precision and relaxation, of functional simplicity and continuous freshness of feeling. It's also about time someone gave credit to the man largely responsible for the aforementioned prfecision — concert master Marshall Royal. At base, of course, this is a triumph belonging to everyone in this exultant band and to the swingingest bandbuilder of them all, William Basie. This is called, by the way, Count Basie Dance Session and it's a powerful reminder of what jazz began as in Storyville — music to dance and live with. This is one band you can't listen to as a detached observer; when you dig Basie, you become part of the beat. 

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, September 8, 1954 [5 stars])*

1 - Straight Life

(Johnny Mandel)

2 - Basie Goes Wess

(Frank Wess)

3 - Softly, With Feeling

(Neal Hefti)

4 - Peace Pipe

(Ernie Wilkins)

5 - Blues Go Away!

(Ernie Wilkins)

6 - Cherry Point

(Neal Hefti)

7 - Bubbles

(Neal Hefti)

8 - Right On

(Freddie Green)

9 - The Blues Done Come Back

(Ernie Wilkins)

10 - Plymouth Rock

(Neal Hefti)

#1, #4, #5, #10:

Reunald Jones, Paul Campbell, Wendell Culley, Joe Newman (trumpets);

Johnny Mandel (bass trumpet [#5, #10]), Henry Coker, Benny Powell (trombones);

Marshall Royal (clarinet, alto sax); Ernie Wilkins (alto sax, tenor sax);

Frank Wess, Frank Foster (tenor saxes); Charlie Fowlkes (baritone sax);

Count Basie (piano); Freddie Green (guitar); Eddie Jones (bass); Gus Johnson (drums);

Neal Hefti (arrangements).

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, August 13 (#5, #10),

and at Fine Studio, New York City, December 12 (#1, #4), 1953

#2, #3, #6, #7, #8, #9: 

Reunald Jones, Joe Wilder, Wendell Culley, Joe Newman (trumpets);

Henderson Chambers, Henry Coker, Benny Powell (trombones);

Marshall Royal (clarinet, alto sax);Ernie Wilkins (alto sax, tenor sax);

Frank Wess, Frank Foster (tenor saxes); Charlie Fowlkes (baritone sax);

Count Basie (piano, organ [#3]); Freddie Green (guitar); Eddie Jones (bass); Gus Johnson (drums);

Neal Hefti (arrangements).

Recorded at Fine Studio, New York City, December 12, 1953

✳✳✳

Count Basie

The Count Basie Sextet

I never seem to be able to make up my mind as to what musical setting I prefer Count Basie in — the big band or the small band. It seems that it is usually the last record that I hear that converts me to its cause. I think the reason, of course, is that Basie is equally adept and equally pleasing in both combinations. In the one you get the power and the drive that the big band gives you, and in the other you get all of the subtlety and relaxed swing that the small combination affords. In either case, though, Basie is always the motivation rhythmically for each group.

This latest album by Count Basie is a Sextet culled from members of his band, and a musician who happens to be Basie's closest musical friend. This "friend" is Buddy Rich. The other members of the band were: Gene Ramey, Freddie Greene, Joe Newman, and Paul Quinichette.

As with most of Basie's records, the tunes are originals penned by Basie or members of his band, and the blues predominate.

For a most swinging (or as the hipsters would probably say "swinging the most") evening, here is the Count and his Sextet. *Norman Granz (liner notes)*

If you put this on a hi-fi set at full room volume, it'll swing you through the window if you don't watch out. This is jazz at its most basic — direct, powerful, unpretentious. Paul Quinichette and Joe Newman are in the front line and ride on top of the rhythm section like it was a jet-engined carpet. With Count is the invaluable Freddie Greene together with Gene Ramey and Buddy Rich.

Basie is on organ on four sides and no one since Fats Waller comes close to Count in jazz organ touch. There's little point in selecting favorite bands — it all moves from Paul's simply expressive Blue and Sentimental to the rocking Royal Garden. One thing only — and this will probably get me read out of the Critics' Circle. There are times when Buddy Rich is somewhat too heavy, as on Count's Organ Blues. But why cavil in the face of a Basie tornado?

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, February 24, 1954 [5 stars])*

1 - Basie Beat

(Count Basie, Joe Newman)

2 - K.C. Organ Blues

(Count Basie, Joe Newman)

3 - She's Funny That Way

(Richard Whiting, Neil Moret)

4 - Royal Garden Blues

(Clarence Williams, Spencer Williams) 

5 - Stan Shorthair

(Count Basie, Joe Newman)

6 - Blue And Sentimental

(Count Basie, Jerry Livingston, Mack David) 

7 - Count's Organ Blues

(Count Basie, Joe Newman)

8 - As Long As I Live

 (Ted Koehler, Harold Arlen)

Count Basie (piano, organ), Joe Newman (trumpet), Paul Quinichette (tenor sax),

Freddy Green (guitar), Gene Ramey (bass), Buddy Rich (drums).  

Recorded at Fine Studio, New York City, December 15, 1953

Five-Star Collection... Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton And His Orchestra

New Concepts Of Artistry In Rhythm

The format for this album was sketched by Kenton himself, and his staff arrangers have developed and interpreted his ideas with rare skill and understanding. New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm is a tribute to these men of the modern school whose stature is ever increasing. It is their ingenuity and creative ability that is directing the course of tomorrow's music.

The intense imagination of Stan Kenton gave pulsing life to Artistry in Rhythm more than ten years ago, and today the freshest and most stimulating ideas of modern music are still in his work — in his New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm.

Throughout the ten years of the Kenton Orchestra's life its music has gradually changed — with accumulated knowledge, experimentation, and association — to bring the listener an ever fresh approach.

This album discloses even more exciting developments in the orchestra's brilliant sound. Masterful musicians like first trumpeter Buddy Childers, first trombonist Bob Burgess, first saxophonist Vinnie Dean, and drummer Stan Levey give it the mark of their personalities; and above all stands the dynamic quality of Stan Kenton, inspiring his orchestra and, indeed, a whole profession — carrying the vibrant message of his music to hosts of eager listeners everywhere. *(from the liner notes)*

This is the New Concepts LP, and it might well have been called Artistry in Russo, for Bill wrote five of these seven originals. First title, which your atlas will show you means Havana, starts with a startling and highly entertaining piece of writing for the trombones, with the Latin rhythm and the unison reeds easing in, followed by unison trumpets. Blood, the swingingest side of the whole set, was penned by Gerry Mulligan, indicates that Stan needs bigger doses of Mulligan in his books.

The Count (Conte Candoli) is well framed in his portrait; the Invention for Sal Salvador and Maynard Ferguson was written by tenor man Bill Holman. Improvisation, the longest and most ambitious number of the set, has some of the most brilliant Russo writing as he used it is the one we enjoyed the least, for its qualities are neurotic and depressing.

The Frank who speaks is trombonist Rosolino, and although he doesn't speak as freely and happily as he used to with Georgie Auld's quintet, this is an effective jazz horn concerto and swings more than the other Russo items. My Lady is addressed by Lee Konitz' alto in attractively melancholy tones. *(Down Beat, Chicago, May 6, 1953 [5 stars])*

1 - 23° N — 82° W

(Bill Russo)

2 - Portait Of A Count

(Bill Russo)

3 - Improvisation

(Bill Russo)

4 - Invention For Guitar And Trumpet

(Bill Holman)

5 - My Lady

(Bill Russo)

6 - Young Blood

(Gerry Mulligan)

7 - Frank Speaking

(Bill Russo)

Buddy Childers, Maynard Ferguson, Conte Candoli, Don Dennis, Ruben McFall (trumpets); 

Bob Burgess, Frank Rosolino, Keith Moon, Bill Russo (trombones); 

George Roberts (bass trombone); Vinnie Dean, Lee Konitz (alto saxes); 

Richie Kamuca, Bill Holman (tenor saxes); Bob Gioga (baritone sax);

Sal Salvador (guitar); Stan Kenton (piano);  Don Bagley (bass); 

Stan Levey (drums), Denon Kenneth Walton (bongos [#1]).

Recorded at Universal Studios "A", Chicago, Illinois, September 10 (#2, #6, #7),

September 11 (#1), September 15 (#4, #5) and September 16 (#3), 1952

Five-Star Collection... Charles Bell

Charles Bell

The Charles Bell Contemporary Jazz Quartet

In recent months the phrase "Third Stream" has been coined to describe an intellectualized form of jazz which springs as much from classical training as from the traditions of popular dance music. John Lewis' Modern Jazz Quartet has made an enormous commercial success in combining severe formal discipline with free-swinging improvisation.

Charles Bell takes his jazz very seriously, as listeners will find out from this extraordinary long-playing record. He is of the firm belief that there can be a legitimate fusion between jazz and the most serious approach to classical music. As a pupil of Nicholai Lopatnikoff, he was first immersed in the Romantic composers, but his interest soon branched out to the early composers of church music as well as the most contemporary writers. As an undergraduate at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, he was first known for his works for chamber orchestra and string quartet, and his present jazz group was formed in 1958 when it made its debut at the "Copa Club". (...)

There are more than a few parallels between Charles Bell and the previously mentioned John Lewis. Both are essentially serious composers, although Bell makes less use of improvisation than does Lewis. Both are dedicated, abstemious souls who are striving to raise the level of public taste as well as to entertain. Even the musical balance of the group is not dissimilar. In the CJQ, the guitar replaces the vibes, but in the drummer, Allen Blairman, there is a real counterpart to the ebullient Milt Jackson of the MJQ. However, there is one significant difference between the two groups: Bell is far less blues-oriented than is John Lewis, and he approaches music even more from the classical side than does the more experienced Lewis.

In the few months that have passed since the award-winning at Georgetown University, the Contemporary Jazz Quartet has had a successful engagement at New York's "Birdland" and worked around Pittsburgh. The CJQ deserves the much broader audience that only records can bring.

*John Hammond (from the liner notes)*

One of the most fascinating things about writing of jazz and jazzmen is the similarity that exists between that specialized branch of journalism and general-assignment reporting of everything under the sun. The similarity is evident in that the unexpected and the new are constant factors and hence constant challenges to the writer.

Bell and company are something new under the jazz sun. This is their first recording (so far as can be ascertained), and their treatment of theme, variation, and rhythmic pulse is, as well, something different. They are not alone in their experimental probings, heaven knows, for the continuous seeking of fresh avenues of expression within the jazz context seems to be synonymous with the music itself.

Bell, an undergraduate of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pa., has written works for chamber orchestra and string quartet. He formed this group in 1958 and made a large critical impression with it in 1960 at Georgetown University Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, at which it was judged the winner by a panel consisting of Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Jack Pleis, and John Hammond. Hammond contributed the liner commentary for this set.

He is constrained to draw parallels between the CJQ and the MJQ. Personally, I'm more inclined to feel a parallel between Bell's combo and the Lennie Tristano-Billy Bauer-Lee Konitz group of the late 1940s. Certainly, the cerebral rather than the emotional dominates Bell's music, much of which shares more in common with contemporary "classical" concepts than it does with what we have become accustomed to regard as jazz.

Most reminiscent of the Tristano approach is Happy Funky, which is devoted mostly to piano and guitar having some fun with a boppish line that is actually a departure in thematic concept from the balance of the album.

The set is rich in professional competency — all know their axes and exploit their potentialities to the limit. Bell is classically trained; Smith is a guitarist of considerable technical prowess; Traficante is an adequate time bassist and a soloist whose abilities are well displayed in the opening Festival; Blairman is an excellent drummer, equipped with the taste and intelligence to participate integrally in the complex and constantly altering figurations that stamp the group with its mark of individuality.

If one were to tie down a single characteristic or trademark of this group, it would have to be the singular contrapuntal interplay between piano and guitar. Their relationship — the sensitive and lightning-like rapport between them — is basic to the quartet's music. It is futile to single out any one example of this twin-thinking; the set is replete with it. This is not to understate the drummer's role. Blairman is accenting the developing lines with subtlety and imagination when he is not laying down firm time on the top cymbal or hi-hat.

As to the individual tracks, The Gospel is not according to Ray Charles, Bobby Timmons, or Les McCann; it's a delicate mood piece at the outset that evolves into blues-flavored jazz improvisation, grooving along at medium tempo. Blairman erupts with very fast-tempoed cymbal work, an interlude of passion before piano and guitar return to re-establish the opening mood of contemplation.

Neither is The Last Sermon fashionable funk. It begins with more contemplation, even introspection, until it is suddenly transformed into uninhibited up-tempo cooking.

Study No. 2 is mainly dialog between piano and guitar, while Variation 3 is taken fast and jazz-spirited with individual contributions tossed back and forth while the drummer is ever aware of meter, pulse, and changing ideas.

Perhaps this group will not catch on with the fashionably hip; perhaps it is too experimental for the Cannonball Adderley fans. I don't think so for one reason—Bell's music avoids the coldness that condemned the offerings of Tristano. It's intellectual, but it's got heart.

*John A. Tynan (Down Beat, June 22, 1961 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Latin Festival

2 - The Gospel

3 - Stage 13

Side 2

4 - The Last Sermon

5 - Counterpoint Study #2

6 - Variation 3

7 - Happy Funky

(All compositions by Charles Bell)

Charles Bell (piano), Bill Smith (guitar), Frank Traficante (bass), Allen Blairman (drums).

Recorded in New York City, July 8, 1960

Five-Star Collection... Johnny Hodges

Johnny Hodges

Collates

You know, we've never been sure what they mean by "collates" in the title of this one — but we're guessing the title was chosen because of the way Johnny blows sheets and sheets of sweet sound together on alto sax! The recordings are in an Ellington mode, but taken to a small group setting — where the sound is a bit more relaxed and open-ended — and where Hodges' sublime alto sax gets even more room to blow us away. Players include Al Sears on tenor, Lawrence Brown on trombone, Emmett Berry on trumpet, and Billy Strayhorn on piano — on titles that include "Castle Rock", "A Pound of the Blues", "Sideways", and "Globetrotter". *Dusty Groove, Inc.*

This is a collection of some of the better sides recorded by Johnny and his orchestra. These recordings, varied as they are, present Hodges as one of the greatest altoists to have ever appeared on the Jazz Scene. Though his forte be the pretty ballad, Hodges can also swing wonderfully and excitingly when he has to, as evidenced in this album. There isn't much more that need be said about this album, except that it's listenable and danceable jazz; in short, good jazz.

As a Hodges admirer from way back, I found this album to be completely gratifying, as a portrayal of his artistry; and I trust you'll get equal satisfaction from it. *Norman Granz (liner notes)*

With the exception of Blue Fantasia, which we don't remember hearing on 78, this is a bunch of impressive reissues showing a few of Johnny's ventures during his first 18 months as a bandleader.

The other soloists — Emmett Berry, Lawrence Brown, Sonny Greer, et al. — are all first-class men, of course; but it's virtually a one-man triumph, with Johnny's alto as exciting on the jump numbers as it is pretty on the slower items. Sears, of course, has his day on the best-selling Castle Rock, which in retrospect remains by far the best version of his own tune.

*Down Beat, Chicago, October 22, 1952 [5 stars]*

1 - Castle Rock

(Al Sears)

2 - Who's Excited

(Vernon Duke)

3 - You Blew Out The Flames In My Heart

(Johnny Hodges)

4 - Globetrotter

(Johnny Hodges)

5 - Pound Of Blues

(Leroy Lovett)

6 - Sideways

(Leroy Lovett)

7 - Blue Fantasia

(Johnny Hodges)

8 - Sweepin' The Blues Away

(Johnny Hodges)

#1, #4:

Johnny Hodges (alto sax), Emmett Berry (trumpet), Lawrence Brown (trombone),

Al Sears (tenor sax), Leroy Lovett (piano [#1]), Billy Strayhorn (piano [#4]),

Lloyd Trotman (bass), Sonny Greer (drums).

Recorded in New York City, March 3, 1951

#3, #7:

Johnny Hodges (alto sax), Nelson Williams (trumpet), Lawrence Brown (trombone),

Al Sears (tenor sax), Leroy Lovett (piano), Al McKibbon (bass), Sonny Greer (drums).

Recorded in New York City, January 15, 1951

#2, #5, #6, #8:

Johnny Hodges (alto sax), Emmett Berry (trumpet), Lawrence Brown (trombone),

Al Sears (tenor sax), Leroy Lovett (piano), Lloyd Trotman (bass), Joe Marshall (drums).

Recorded in New York City, January 13 (#2, #5, #6) and January 17 (#8), 1952

Five-Star Collection... Oscar Peterson

The Oscar Peterson Trio

At The Stratford Shakespearean Festival

Throughout the flow of the various albums that the Trio has completed, many critics and listeners have remarked that the feeling and swinging qualities of our group seldom have been captured on records. They also felt that the delicate and communicative rapport that they sensed on our in-person appearances was usually lost in the mechanical and cold confines of a recording studio. I am inclined to agree to the extent that our group performs much better, speaking in a sensitive vein, in places, and under circumstances in which a live audience is involved. It is for this reason that I honestly believe that this recording of the Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival is our best to date.

Relatively speaking, everything was in our favor. First and foremost, the Trio was given two nights (which we shared with the Modern Jazz Quartet), in which to display a cross section view of our musical wares. Secondly, the audiences both nights were not only appreciative, but also cooperative, in that they not only were quiet throughout, but withheld their applause until the end of each solo or number, with the exception of places where they seemed moved to the point where they felt obligated to applaud. This type of genuine and spontaneous appreciation served only to inspire and encourage our efforts, and in no way hindered us.

Thirdly, we were aided by a very helpful John Lewis of the M.J.Q., who lent the engineer a hand in the control room in the monitoring of the Trio. Knowing most of our arrangements from past dual appearances of the two groups, John was able to foresee well in advance any change in the balance structure of the group. (...)

As for myself, I have never felt more relaxed and at ease at a recording session as I have at this one, and I feel that it shows in my playing. I hope that on hearing this album, the listeners agree with me. *Oscar Peterson (from the liner notes)*

Almost as if in answer to the discussion in the June 27 issue between Balliet, Ertegun, and Feather, comes this extraordinary album which presents for the first time the Peterson Trio in the magnificent unit sound it gets in person.

Throughout this album you will find the particular kind of down-home, funky swinging which characterizes the type of jazz more directly linked to the basic roots of the music. Wherever you find it, you will also find that the Trio has, whether or not the tune in question is a blues, given it a blues feel. For, in the final analysis, to play funky is to play with a blues feeling, a low down blues feeling ("how low and how wicked", as Bunk Johnson said) and you can do this with Cole Porter as well as with Memphis Slim by evoking the mood, feeling, and the sound with "blue" chords and notes. This is the folk link that Duke and Basie and the MJQ and others all exploit.

That the Peterson Trio is one of the best musical units in jazz has been accepted in most quarters for some time now. Until the appearance of this album, however, it has not been too easily demonstrated on disc. Here for the first time we have the boiling, bubbling, swinging beat that the group specializes in brought through onto disc. How High and Gypsy, as well as the wonderful Love You Madly, are perfect examples. In Flamingo it's the development of harmony that's striking, but in the other it's the back to the farm swing that's a complete gas.

The album, by the way, was recorded under the personal supervision of John Lewis. That's right. There should be more like this. *Ralph J. Gleason (Down Beat, July 25, 1957 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Falling In Love With Love

(Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart)

2 - How About You

(Burton Lane, Ralph Freed)

3 - Flamingo

(Ted Grouya, Edmund Anderson)

4 - Swinging On A Star

(Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke)

5 - Noreen's Nocturne

(Oscar Peterson)

Side 2

6 - Gypsy In My Soul

(Clay Boland, Moe Jaffe)

7 - How High The Moon

(Morgan Lewis, Nancy Hamilton)

8 - Love You Madly

(Duke Ellington)

9 - 52nd Street Theme

(Thelonious Monk)

Oscar Peterson (piano), Herb Ellis (guitar), Ray Brown (basss).

Recorded live at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival, Ontario, Canada, August 8, 1956

Five-Star Collection... Chico Hamilton

Chico Hamilton Quintet

Featuring Buddy Collette

CHICO HAMILTON: "This is the way the group came about: After we made the trio records (Pacific Jazz PJ-17) I decided to add Buddy Collette to the group. In addition I had planned to use John Graas on French horn, but then John had to leave Los Angeles with the Liberace Show. About the same time I was working with Fred Katz who was then playing piano.

Fred had just said to me, 'Before I hang up my gloves I'd like to play a little jazz on the cello'. I told him about the group I had in mind and mentioned that John was leaving town. Right then and there the idea was born. Later, John suggested Jimmy Hall. I had told John that I needed a guitarist. He said, 'I've got a guitarist rehearsing with me. He's here fresh from Cleveland — he reads good, plays good, and also writes'. So I called Jimmy — now he's in the group. I was very fortunate to get Carson Smith. I actually had to look hard for him. I was told he had been working at the Celebrity Room in Hollywood. Three days later I found that the club had folded right after Carson opened. I finally managed to locate him — now I had a quintet. I called a rehearsal. The guys came over to my place and we just started making with the sounds. We only had two sheets of music then — it wasn’t exactly a rehearsal, but it was a beginning".

FRED KATZ: "I think that we have here, because of the calibre of the guys, something that is unique. That something is content. I think each one writes with feeling. Each

original composition has warmth, has meaning, has a reason for being; it’s not just a series of clever chords or clever ideas".

JIM HALL: "It's a necessity that we now have thorough arrangements, otherwise there’s no reason for the cello. Yet, it's the cello that pulls us together".

BUDDY COLLETTE: "We express ourselves mainly in writing now. Although we do improvise... out of which comes a tune — some idea one of us played — later, somebody brings in an arrangement on it".

CARSON SMITH: "Jazz is an American culture; it started in America. I believe jazz is the only really American cultural achievement. Improvisation is the key word. Out of

this comes composition and arrangement! I think improvisation is the most positive element in jazz. There wouldn't be jazz without it, but we can have jazz without arrangements. Because of the instrumentation of the Quintet, with the addition of the cello, we must depend on arrangements. We find freedom writing. In that direction, there is so far to go, so much to explore".

*(from the liner notes [an interview with the Chico Hamilton Quintet on October 9, 1955])*

Chico Hamilton's new quintet is responsible for one of the most stimulating, consistently inventive and unique jazz recordings of this or any recent year. There is, first of all, superb musicianship on the part of Buddy Collette, flute, clarinet, tenor and alto; Jim Hall, guitar; Fred Katz, cello; Carson Smith, bass, and Hamilton, drums. There is also the fresh writing by all five. As Katz points out in the notes, "...each one writes with feeling. Each original composition has warmth, has meaning, has a reason for being; it's not just a series of clever chords or clever ideas".

The third quality of excellence evident here is the collective emotional empathy of the quintet. This is really a unit, and while each of the men in it expresses his own individuality eloquently, they reach their total fulfillment in the cohesive, partly improvisational interplay that is so vitally basic to the best jazz.

There's a lot more — the excellent beat, the scope of the group, the discovery of Hall and Katz, and the newly impressive impact of Collette and Smith (Hamilton has always been first-rate so long as I can remember). Excellent recorded sound. Second side was cut at the Strollers Club in Long Beach, Calif. Only clinker are the notes on the individual numbers by Fran Kelley, written in her inimitable prose, a cross between science fiction and theosophy. 

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, December 14, 1955 [5 stars])*

1 - A Nice Day

(Buddy Collette)

2 - My Funny Valentine

(Rodgers, Hart)

3 - Blue Sands

(Buddy Collette)

4 - The Sage

(Fred Katz)

5 - The Morning After

(Chico Hamilton)

6 - I Want To Be Happy

(Youmans, Caesar)

7 - Spectacular

(Jim Hall)

8 - Free From

(improvisation)

9 - Walking Carson Blues

(traditional, arrangement by Carson Smith)

10 - Buddy Boo

(Buddy Collette)

Buddy Collette (flute, alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet), Fred Katz (cello),

Jim Hall (guitar), Carson Smith (bass), Chico Hamilton (drums).

#1 to #5: Recorded at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles, California, August 23, 1955 

#6 to #10: Recorded live at The Strollers Club, Long Beach, California, August 4, 1955

Five-Star Collection... Coleman Hawkins

Coleman Hawkins

The High And Mighty Hawk

Of all the hundreds of records Coleman Hawkins made during his magnificent career, this LP comes very close to the top in terms of musical excellence. It is perhaps the best of all the albums which Stanley Dance produced for the Felsted label when he visited New York at the beginning of 1958, for Dance caught Hawk at a time when he was not only on top form but also wanted to play. Hawk chose the rhythm section himself and agreed with Stanley Dance on the choice of trumpeter (although the tenor player's first choice was actually Ray Copeland). Although Hawk was not, primarily, a blues player he could and did play the blues when the occasion arose but surely never better than those majestic seventeen choruses he rolls out on the opening Bird of prey blues. And if you want to hear the correct way to play a flawless ascending arpeggio on the saxophone then listen to the opening theme statement of Robert Mellin's My one and only love. *Alun Morgan*

 

The high and mighty Hawk, Coleman Hawkins — "who I think was the greatest influence and stimulated the greatest change in saxophone style very abruptly".

Thus Duke Ellington after mentioning Sidney Bechet, Johnny Hodges and Charlie Parker in a discussion on improvisation (vide "The Book of Jazz" by Leonard Feather).

In terms of personal accomplishment and influence, Hawk will be second only to Duke and Louis Armstrong in most lists of Jazz giants. Like them, he is really beyond category, but unlike them, he had no early mentors, no Doc Perry, no King Oliver, to guide his first exploratory steps. The tenor sax, as he is at pains to emphasize, was not introduced into jazz by him, but it was in jazz only on sufferance until he finally emancipated it while a member of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. Then the rough, staccato style, full of slap-tongued notes, gave way to one that was flowing and more subtly swinging. From then on, until Lester Young entered the scene with Count Basie, Hawk was the supreme arbiter of tenor fashion, and one who did so much towards raising the status of his instrument that eventually it came to have the dominant solo role in jazz.

For more than three decades, Hawk has met every challenge, home and away. Always willing to meet any competition, "cutting contests" were for him a kind of exercise, sparring rounds from which he profited, but where the full resources had seldom to be employed. Superbly confident, and alertly interested in all new musical developments within jazz, he is a thinking musician who assimilates what he regards of value and spurns the trite and hackneyed. His association with boppers and self-styled "modern" musicians was an example of his adventurous outlook, although in many ways he had antedated them. He recalls for instance, how he was accused of wrong notes in his 1939 version of Body and Soul by "a lot of people who didn't know about flatted fifths and augmented changes".

Yet while other styles and stylists have come and gone, the essentials of Hawk's style have endured unimpaired — the big, full tone, the warmth of utterance, the expressive phrasing with its marvellous feeling for the beat, the spontaneity and originality of his improvisations, and the unfailing, surging swing. It is a style, of course, eminently suited to a "Mainstream" series such as this, and the four musicians chosen to play with him here provide the kind of sympathetic, stimulating and thoroughly professional support he most esteems. *Stanley Dance (from the liner notes)*

To be brief and maybe a little dogmatic about it, I think this is the Hawkins' record that some of us have been waiting for.

Hawkins is a phoenix: he seems to be re-born periodically as a major jazzman. (Of course, it's quite possible that it is only our ears that are re-born). The current Hawkins was announced, I think, at Newport in '56, and was recorded on Columbia (CL933). Since then no recording quite captured what he was doing at his best, although Riverside 12-233 came very close. This record does it; it preserves one of those rare occasions which most jazz performances necessarily only imply.

Everyone involved seems to have known it. Clayton's imagination is constant; he invents fine melodies throughout nearly every solo and executes them personally and with that taste and sense of relevance that never seems to leave him. Hank Jones, a nearly perfect complement here to the implicit lyricism and rhythmic strength of both Hawkins and Clayton, seems almost to use all the life and invention he has been holding back over at Capitol, and shows more originality in his ideas than he has on records in some time. Sheen plays with an understanding of Hawkins' rhythmic conception that a few drummers have and it seems a release for both of them.

Hawkins has a style based on his knowledge of what notes are in chords and what nearby notes can be added to them, of course, It is not at all strange that he is personally out of sympathy with the other major tenor school, founded by Lester Young, which approaches improvisation compositionally and, rather than opening chords, writes new melodies with a knowledge of intervals. Hawkins' way can lead to overly decorative playing and here on One and Only Love I think nearly does. On the other hand, it can lead to truly cohesive and functional improvisation-on-theme and I would be willing to use You've Changed as an excellent example of just how it can. His rhythms, almost always and still basically alternating heavy/weak heavy/weak, can lead to monotony but he knows how to break through the pattern and re-create it by contrast. Bird of Prey and Miss G.P. show how.

But these things, like Hemingway's short sentences or Armstrong's four-bar units, are only Hawkins' means, and at the right moments are only, for him, necessary ways of creating that mysterious whole we call art.

When he is being an artist, he does not seem to be using them but re-creating them both as a means and a part of a new entity.

The Hawkins here of Bird of Prey, Miss G.P., You’ve Changed does that and does it with ideas, a power, and sure sense of pace that could challenge anyone and enlighten us all.

*Martin Williams (Down Beat, April 16, 1959 [5 stars])*

1 - Bird Of Prey Blues

(Coleman Hawkins)

2 - My One And Only Love

(Guy B. Wood, Robert Mellin)

3 - Vignette

(Henry "Hank" Jones)

4 - Ooh-Wee, Miss G.P.!

(Coleman Hawkins)

5 - You've Changed

(Bill Carey, Carl T. Fischer)

6 - Get Set

(Henry "Hank" Jones)

Coleman Hawkins (tenor sax), Buck Clayton (trumpet),

Hank Jones (piano), Ray Brown (bass), Mickey Sheen (drums).

Recorded in New York City, February 18 and 19, 1958

Five-Star Collection... Jimmy Raney

Jimmy Raney Quintet

Jimmy Raney Plays

There are a number of guitarists in jazz today who choose good notes, show facility in playing them, and have "that swing" which "it don't mean a thing if you ain't got". Jimmy Raney has all of these qualifications, and with them a thinking content in his playing which sets him at the top of his division as the significant guitarist.

This album is important because it brings Jimmy into the foreground after playing a subordinate role for too long. His two-chorus solos have a unity and clarity to them that represent his best recorded work to date. For faithful reproduction of his sound, this album is also a high-water mark. In addition, he has offered more convincing evidence of his talents as a composer. (...)

The group itself is a corps of the core of jazz, the small unit. (...)

The cover is by David Young, a young painter from Boston whose feeling for jazz enabled him to direct his artistry into an effective delineation of the subject at hand.

*Ira Gitler (from the liner notes)*

The Raney guitar, long a feature on numerous combos' cuttings, gets its own day in the sun at last in this fine LP comprising four double-length performances. Raney is teamed with a tenor man described on the cover as "Sven Coolson", though you will recognize him immediately as Lars Getzberg. Thus the overall result is similar to many of the sides Stan and Jimmy cut together for Roost, except that Jimmy gets the longer solos.

Jimmy wrote the three originals, which have a Tristanoish touch in their charming unison lines. Signal is the most attractive. Jimmy has found a good compromise between the muffled Tal Farlow sound and the "live" tone of the older—Charlie Christian—school. And he swings always.

Rhythm section is excellent, though the solo passages of Hall Overton (who sounds like a classical musician dipping his fingers into bop) and bassist Red Mitchell are the weakest spots of the disc. Midnight, the old Monk tune, is handled in a most relaxed fashion as Raney and Getz weave their way in and out of its still alluring chord structure. Frank Isola’s drumming is effectively discreet throughout both sides. *Down Beat, Chicago, August 26, 1953 [5 stars]*

Side 1

1 - Motion

(Jimmy Raney)

2 - Lee

(Jimmy Raney)

Side 2

3 - Signal

(Jimmy Raney)

4 - 'Round About Midnight

(Thelonious Monk)

Jimmy Raney (guitar), Stan Getz as "Sven Coolson" (tenor sax),

Hall Overton (piano), Keith "Red" Mitchell (bass), Frank Isola (drums).

Recorded at WOR Recording Studios, New York City, April 23, 1953

Five-Star Collection... Many Albam

Manny Albam

Manny Albam And The Jazz Greats Of Our Time • Vol.1

Considering the fact that much of the essential character of jazz is derived from the spontaneity and excitement of improvisation, it would certainly seem that the most definitive jazz writing should be in compatible relation with, and emphasize the role of, the soloist. In essence, a marriage between the improvisation and the writing: the writer providing a pithy framework that is thought-provoking and impetus to the soloist, and in turn, the soloist, given the necessary latitude, investing life, individuality and substance to the story intimated in the writing.

There are some critics and musicians who subscribe to the polar aspects of this subject: some stand for improvisation in the complete sense —spontaneous, intuitive—without framework or guideposts; others line up for composition to the point of shutting off the soloist by writing everything, or giving him only a limited role. And then, there are variations on both. However, the middle ground, in its equivalent relation between writing and blowing, gives evidence of being the best approach.

We must enlarge for clarity... In their own way, some of these polar ventures have been successful, but whether they are jazz or not, is a matter for discussion. On the other hand, going toward the middle ground, definitions become clear, and the performance becomes jazz in the more accepted sense, retaining the idiom’s identifiable markings.

In truth, tradition is most accessible from the vantage point of the middle ground, and if anything were to define the writing of Manny Albam, it would be its great respect and reflection of tradition:

"I cannot divorce myself from tradition, for it's where we all come from, and it should be a base from which we operate in jazz. If writing is to be JAZZ WRITING, it should fuse the elements particular to its own tradition — the beat, improvisation within a disciplinary frame, and its own unique feeling.

"On this CORAL set, the first of a series, I had the blowers, the guys who dig deeply, and endow writing with the necessary richness of improvisational content. This is just what I wanted, for I feel that an inter-relation, inter-dependence between writing and blowing in jazz composition is imperative."*Burt Korall (from the liner notes)* 

This makes it. Manny Albam, an arranger sensitive to the blowing as well as the writing scene, assembled a good cross-section of eastern mainstream hornmen, supplied them with three-quarters of the New York Rhythm Section, and gave them some material on which to embroider, ranging from sparkling to merely fine.

Oddly enough, or perhaps justly enough, I found the Albam originals to be more fertile in terms of the results shown here. The two non-Albam tracks, Sweetie and Duke's All Too Soon, don't compare with the consistency and wealth of solos with which Blues for Neither Coast is endowed.

In fact, the only other track I found as richly rewarding as Neither Coast was Dr. Millmoss, and in this, Albam scores by using a simple device: Mulligan and Cohn playing the bass line on baritones as a binding factor in the composition.

Brookmeyer emerges as the most constantly challenging soloist. His appearances on the first three tracks, particularly on Blues, are glistening. His solo on Minor Matters is excellent, and his second solo on All Too Soon is moving and powerful.

Art Farmer's opening solo on Neither Coast is among his best recorded work. Zoot is unusually subdued throughout, except on Sweetie, where he boots along like the freewheeling tenor man we have come to know. Woods is stabbing and often terse. His playing of late has been brimming with tension. Travis is fine, particularly tasty in his muted work. Mulligan is good, but he has been more declarative as a soloist in his own group. As a supporting voice, he is excellent. Cohn is smooth and flowing, as expected. And Hank Jones remains one of the most tasteful of pianists.

Although I raise an eyebrow at the album title, I realize that other contractual commitments would of necessity exclude such vital voices as Miles, Monk, Diz, Hawk, J. J., Max Roach, and Pettiford, among other greats.

Burt Korall's liner notes are a valuable guidepost to the team lines followed by the participants. Manny has a West Coast collection due for release to complement this East Coast cross section. *Dom Cerulli (Down Beat, November 28, 1957 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Blues From Neither Coast

(Manny Albam)

2 - Latined Fracture

(Manny Albam)

3 - Poor Dr. Millmoss

(Manny Albam)

Side 2

4 - Minor Matters

(Manny Albam)

5 - My Sweetie Went Away

(Roy Turk, Lou Handman)

6 - All Too Soon

(Duke Ellington, Carl Sigman)

7 - See Here, Miss Bromley

(Manny Albam)

Art Farmer, Nick Travis (trumpets); Bob Brookmeyer (valve trombone); Phil Woods (alto sax);

Zoot Sims (tenor sax); AI Cohn (tenor sax, baritone sax); Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax);

Hank Jones (piano); Milt Hinton (bass); Osie Johnson (drums); Manny Albam (arranger, conductor).

Recorded in New York City, April 2 [#5], April 3 [#3, #6, #7] and April 4 [#1, #2, #4], 1957

✳✳✳

Manny Albam

Manny Albam And The Jazz Greats Of Our Time • Vol. 2

By design, the writing for this set is spare. Though engaging in its own right, jazz composer-arranger MANNY ALBAM aimed for functionality, writing catalytic frameworks for his soloists. Like the writer of plays, he provided provocative material, but left it to his players to breathe life and immediacy into his story.

Says Manny Albam — "Regardless of what is said to the contrary, jazz is, and always has been a player’s art. When the jazz composer-arranger realizes this, adjusts his working perspective accordingly, giving due consideration and space to the soloist, only then can jazz composition become the community of expression it is at its best... I feel that an inter-relation, inter-dependence between writing and blowing in jazz composition is imperative."

If anything were to truly define the writing of Manny Albam, it would be its great respect and reflection of tradition.

Following traditional procedure: incorporation of elements particular to the jazz tradition — the beat, improvisation within a disciplinary frame, and jazz's own unique feeling — has become increasingly important to him.

Awareness of the past, or shall we say, the whole of jazz, is likely to make one's work all the more meaningful. Having functioned as a writer in a wide range of jazz situations (scoring big bands — Auld, Barnet, Kenton, Herman, etc., jazz backgrounds for vocalists, small bands) helped him to this realization.

For this set, recorded in Hollywood, Manny employed 'blowers'; men equipped to fill his frameworks with the necessary improvisational nutrition. Once again, proof is accessible that players of substance are players of substance regardless of geographical boundaries.

*Burt Korall (from the liner notes)*

This set is a perfect companion piece to Albam’s Jazz Greats, Vol. 1, and some of the comments on that LP apply to this one. For instance, I still find Albam's originals far more interesting throughout than the standards. Possible exception here is De-Lovely, and again I find it's more Manny’s arrangement than the tune itself which makes it.

At any rate, I'll wager there hasn't been a moodier, lovelier ballad original than Afterthoughts (Benny Golson and his remarkable ballad compositions are not included in this bet). Kamuca and Candoli combine on Afterthoughts to create a stunningly somber mood, with the rest of the ensemble pitched low behind them. You can almost feel the rain.

Interwoven is interesting structurally, with sharp Mariano and Geller, and some pungent interchanges between Candoli and Sweets, the latter identified as Trumpeter X because of contractual ties.

Sweets has most of Sweet's-Bread to himself, and blows some compelling trumpet with the ensemble cast in a Basie vein. Harry stays in that groove, blowing relaxed muted trumpet on his and Basie's Jive at Five, and manages a witty phrase variation in the closing statement of the theme.

Thunder-Burt, similar in conception and main theme to Blues for Neither Coast in Vol. 1, is a good comparison track for buffs wishing to carry the East Coast–West Coast discussion into late spring. Solos here, perhaps because of the overall feel of the piece, are funkier, particularly Mariano’s baritone, Williamson's trombone, and Candoli (dig his trace of Eldridge at the end of his second chorus), and to a lesser extent, Flory and Kamuca.

De-Lovely is freshly arranged and smartly played all around. How Long, a muted, shadowy ballad, has some rough spots in Sheldon's solo and at the close of Levy's fine piano spot (with some interesting things going on behind him by Shelly).

If, after listening to both coasts on the two volumes, you can draw any conclusion, it will have to include that each swings, although the westerners seem to find their kicks in a Countish vein. You might also note that this is the third Coral LP in recent months by Albam, which has been in every way a superior effort. He seems to have crystallized that knack of writing brightly without lapsing into pretentiousness, and can score for plenty of solo blowing without just arranging a head and a tail and letting the soloists construct the rest of the skeleton as well as fleshing it out.

*Dom Cerulli (Down Beat, February 20, 1958 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Intervowen

(Manny Albam)

2 - Afterthoughts

(Manny Albam)

3 - Sweet's-Bread

(Manny Albam)

Side 2

4 - Jive At Five

(Harry Edison, Count Basie)

5 - Thurnder Burt

(Manny Albam)

6 - How Long Has This Been Going On?

(George and Ira Gershwin)

7 - It's De-Lovely

(Cole Porter)

Conte Candoli, Jack Sheldon [#2, #5, #6],

Harry Edison as "Trumpeter X" [#1, #3, #4, #7] (trumpets); Stu Williamson (valve trombone);

Herb Geller (alto sax); Richie Kamuca, Med Flory [#2, #5, #6] (tenor saxes);

Bill Holman [#1, #3, #4, #7] (tenor sax, baritone sax);

Charlie Mariano (alto sax, tenor sax, baritone sax); 

Lou Levy (piano); Red Mitchell (bass); Shelly Manne (drums); Manny Albam (arranger, conductor). 

Recorded in Los Angeles, California, August 4 [#2, #5, #6],

August 15 [#3, #4, #7] and August 16 [#1], 1957

Five-Star Collection... Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan Quartet

Paris Concert

Few bands have shot to the top and won the unanimous acclaim of jazz fans as quickly as has the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.

It was with some apprehension, therefore, that we looked forward to their appearance at the Salle Pleyel on June 1, 1954, as part of the Third Paris Jazz Festival, for we had been disappointed more than once by famous soloists or big name bands from America.

Having heard only records, and knowing what marvelous results modern recording techniques can produce, weren't we going to be disappointed by a personal appearance? Would such a reduced combo be able to project beyond the footlights in as large and cold a hall as the Salle Pleyel? Wouldn't the balance of the Quartet suffer from having Chet Baker's trumpet replaced by the trombone of Bob Brookmeyer, who was completely unknown here? And last of all, how could this simple little quartet of white musicians compete with the memories left by the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, or by Louis Armstrong's dynamic Hot Five which we had previously heard in this same Salle Pleyel?

All these fears melted away as if by magic the moment the Gerry Mulligan Quartet launched into the first bars of "Come Out Wherever You Are," with which they opened the first set of the Jazz Festival that memorable evening of June 1, 1954.

Something very unusual happened — for a jazz concert: the audience was seized at once by a sort of rapt fervor, and a real communion was established between the public and the band. It was as if the audience had suddenly put aside its customary boisterousness to give complete attention to a really special musical treat.  *Charles Dalaunay (from the liner notes)*

A record of a Paris Concert, specifically a June 1, 1954, event at Paris' Salle Pleyel, part of the Third Paris Jazz Festival. Drummer is Frank Isola, with Red Mitchell on bass and Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone. So far as I know, this is the only recording available of the quartet with Brookmeyer as the complementary horn (although Bob and Gerry have recorded together in other contexts).

Although Gerry has since wisely gone on beyond the limitations inherent in this kind of quartet, it's valuable to have a record of the quartet at its height in that Brookmeyer is a more creative, thinking musician than were any of his predecessors in the unit. As a result, Mulligan is also extended, and the playing of the two throughout is a stimulating, sinewy set of superior examples of the art of modern collective linear improvisation. Both are also creative soloists with guts and jazz-roots. (Dig the more vigorous than heretofore quartet version of Moonlight and those moving Shoes).

Mitchell is excellent (he also has a fine solo on Love Me). Isola could flow more, but he's a steady drummer. The set includes the whole scene with the applause and even with some of Gerry's well-intentioned French. Generally good recorded sound. Notes are by Charles Delaunay, head of France's Jazz-Hot. *Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, March 21, 1956 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Come Out Wherever You Are

(J. Styne, S. Cahn)

2 - Five Brothers

(Gerry Mulligan)

3 - Laura

(D. Raksin, J. Mercer)

4 - Love Me Or Leave Me

(W. Donaldson, G. Kahn)

5 - Utter Chaos (Mulligan closing theme)

(Gerry Mulligan)

Side 2

6 - Bernie's Tune

(B. Miller)

7 - Walkin' Shoes

(Gerry Mulligan)

8 - Moonlight In Vermont

(K. Suessdorf, J. Blackburn)

9 - The Lady Is A Tramp

(R. Rodgers, L. Hart)

10 - Utter Chaos (Mulligan closing theme)

(Gerry Mulligan)

Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), Bob Brookmeyer (valve trombone),

Red Mitchell (bass), Frank Isola (drums).

Recorded live at Salle Pleyel, Paris, France, June 1, 1954