Phil Woods: Integrity (Red 123177-2)
Performing on nearly 700 albums (150 as a leader) Phil Woods kept the bebop flame burning brightly throughout a long and productive career. He burst onto the scene with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in 1956 and soon became established as the first-call alto in the highly competitive New York studio scene.
By 1968 the jazz world was changing and finding work was difficult, Woods saying “I couldn’t even get arrested with my quartet.” He moved to France where he formed his highly successful European Rhythm Machine with Gordon Beck, which gave his career a fresh impetus.
A year after returning to New York in 1974 he received the first of his 29 Downbeat awards and the following year he recorded his stellar Live From The Showboat album which won a Grammy (Sony Music SICP 3992-3). Another of his CDs from this period that is well worth tracking down is Michel Legrand’s 1978 Le Jazz Grand with Jon Faddis and Gerry Mulligan (DCCJazz DJZ 609CD). In 1977 he was introduced to a completely new audience with his notable contributions to Phoebe Snow’s Never Letting Go and Billy Joel’s huge hit Just The Way You Are. The session fee for each was $700.
This double CD’s sleeve note quotes current and new releases from the Red Records catalogue. No other information is provided apart from personnel and repertoire. It gives Perugia and 1982 for the location and date but Tom Lord’s Jazz Discography quotes Bologna and 1984.
That said, it finds the quintet in fine, exuberant form. Tom Harrell was a recent addition and he was to remain until 1989. His bright, burnished tone, almost free of vibrato is reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard’s, especially on the opening Repetition which Charlie Parker introduced with strings back in 1947. Hal Galper, who joined Woods in 1981 – together with regulars Steve Gilmore and Bill Goodwin, who had been with him since 1974 – are a little under-recorded but still provide subtle rhythmic support. Phil Woods’ soaring alto is at his most authoritative throughout this reissue and there is even some of his delicate clarinet to enjoy on Azure.
Cannonball Adderley With Sergio Mendes And The Bossa Rio Sextet (Jazz Samba 709121)
Cannonball Adderley was leading one of the most popular small groups on the jazz scene when this 1962 album was recorded. He and his brother Nat were thrilling club audiences with fresh, gospel-influenced originals like Work Song, Dis Here (aka This Here), Dat Dere, One For Daddy-O, Sack O’Woe and a little later Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, which represented quite a departure from the normal run-of-the-mill bop repertoire.
This date was a little unusual for Adderley because it was his only entry into the delightful world of bossa-nova, with its irresistible rhythms and harmonies. Ted Gioia, in his definitive Jazz Standards book, has pointed out that just about everyone in New York’s Local 802 was recording a bossa nova album in the early 60s. Stan Getz’s Jazz Samba was constantly on the airwaves and even Coleman Hawkins had dipped his toe in the water. Sergio Mendes was something of an unknown quantity to North American audiences at the time. This changed quite dramatically four years later when, with his newly formed Brazil ’66, he recorded Mas Que Nada, which reached number five on Billboard’s pop chart.
Numbers like Corcovado, Once I Loved and Joyce’s Samba find Adderley tempering his usual exuberance to reveal a gentle lyricism not always apparent when fronting his free-wheeling, hard-swinging quintet. This LP includes an edited version of Clouds, which was released as a single. It was not available on the original release.
Sam Most: Sextettes 1952-1954 (Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD1155)
Jordi Pujol is a past master in tracking down the most obscure sessions for release on his innovative Fresh Sound label. This latest reissue features multi-instrumentalist Sam Most who had worked with Tommy Dorsey, Shep Fields, Boyd Raeburn and Don Redman, although he did not record with those bands. Jordi’s diligent research has discovered Most’s first three dates as a leader, which introduced his pioneering flute solos together with his accomplished clarinet work. The flute, of course, has similar fingering to the saxophone and by the early 50s it had replaced the tricky clarinet (with its different fingering for each octave) as the standard double for sax players.
The 1952 Undercurrent Blues was Most’s first recorded attempt on flute, and it impressed Herbie Mann, who said “When I started playing jazz on the flute there was only one record out – Sam Most’s Undercurrent Blues.” Over the next couple of years his flute playing became more polished and I Hear A Rhapsody, Eullalia, Skippy and Blues Junction are all fine examples of his craft – so much so that Mann, Yusef Lateef, Roland Kirk and Hubert Laws have all cited him as an influence. Charles Mingus, no less, once called him “the world’s greatest jazz flutist”.
His premier instrument was still the clarinet and The Night We Called It A Day, There Will Never Be Another You and especially Notes To You demonstrate what a fine player he was. The latter storms along at 80 bpm recalling Buddy DeFranco at his very best. Indeed in 1954 Down Beat nominated him as the New Star on the instrument. Doug Mettome and Urbie Green both elegance personified have their moments on A Cuss Called Coss and Scroobydoo. Marty Flax weighs in with some heavy-duty baritone on Open House and Just Tutshen worthy of Cecil Payne.