Five-Star Collection... Bud Shank

Bud Shank Quintet

Compositions Of Shorty Rogers

The purposes and aims of Nocturne's "Jazz in Hollywood" series have led to this presentation, featuring a group of musicians who have figured prominently in the Hollywood jazz vista. Bud Shank, brilliant ex-Kenton altoist, is featured, with a quintet made of Shorty Rogers, flugle horn and trumpet, Jimmy Rowles, piano, Harry Babasin, bass, and Roy Harte, drums, in a group of hitherto unrecorded originals by Shorty Rogers, the result being another excellent example of "Jazz in Hollywood". 

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In 1953, [Bud Shank] appearing and recording with Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne, Barney Kessel, Laurindo Almeida, Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars, and many others, Bud has definitely established himself as one of Hollywood's top jazz stars, of whom we are all destined to hear much. 

Among Hollywood's musicians, Shorty Rogers probably has contributed more to the jazz scene than any other who could be mentioned. Well-known talents, his swinging trumpet and writing styles, are again asserted herein, as are lesser-known talents on flugle horn and in a sensitive ballad conception. 

Rowles, Babasin, and Harte, as in Herbie Harper Quintet Album (NLP 1), again furnish that relaxed rhythmic support so conducive to sincere jazz effort. *(fom the liner notes)*

Nocturne's second LP is a joy unto the ears. First of all, it demonstrates further how excitingly inventive an altoist Bud Shank has become. And in his well-controlled, full-toned flutework on Lotus Bud, Shank indicates that he and Frank Wess would seem to be the leading contenders for the jazz flute diadem. On the other end of the front line is Shorty Rogers, blowing with his usual skilled enthusiasm and newly disclosing an incisive mastery of the flugel horn. The rhythm section (Roy Harte, Harry Babasin, and Jimmy Rowles) are as dynamically attuned as the front line, and Rowles' piano solos are always stimulating and economically conceived.

All of the tunes were written by Shorty. Thematically I prefer the slowly unfolding lines of Jasmine and Lotus Bud, but the casual figures of the up-tempo numbers lend themselves swingingly to ad lib elaboration, and Casa de Luz has particular, sharp distinction. The expressive gamut of this group is worth contrasting with the Mulligan and Baker units. There is no aura of the fragile glasshouse here. Recording is good; engineering is by John Neal. Whether there is such an entity as "west coast jazz" or not, this is fine work by any definition, geographical or just musical.

*Nat Hentoff (Down Beat, June 2, 1954 [5 stars])*

Side 1

1 - Casa De Luz

2 - Lotus Bud

3 - Left Bank

Side 2

4 - Shank's Pranks

5 - Jasmine

6 - Just A Few

(All compositions by Shorty Rogers)

Bud Shank (alto fute, ato sax), Shorty Rogers (flugelhorn),

Jimmy Rowles (piano), Harry Babasin (bass), Roy Harte (drums).

Recorded at Western Recorders, Hollywood, California, March 25, 1954