BUD SHANK · BOB COOPER — Blowin' Country (1959-1998) West Coast Classics Series | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

West Coast jazz of the 1950s has long had a bad reputation in jazz history books and among East Coast jazz writers who have stereotyped it as an overarranged and bloodless music best heard in movie soundtracks of the era. In reality, it was a multifaceted style, a smoothing of bebop's rough edges that could often be hard-swinging even with its quiet rhythm sections. Two of the finest West Coast players of the '50s were Bud Shank and Bob Cooper. Shank, a cool-toned altoist who on this 1998 CD also plays flute and tenor, appeared on many dates with Coop, who triples here on tenor, bass clarinet and oboe. Despite the CD title (named after a Shank original), the music that they perform on these selections from 1958 (plus five added numbers from 1956) is not country music but swinging jazz. Teamed with either pianist Claude Williamson or guitarist Howard Roberts, bassist Don Prell and drummer Chuck Flores, Shank and Cooper display distinctive but complementary styles, and their tripling on woodwinds gives plenty of variety to the date. Cooper's oboe playing, which preceded Yusef Lateef's, in particular is a joy. Highly recommended. Scott Yanow  
Tracklist :
1. Dinah 3:18
Harry Akst / Sam M. Lewis / Joe Young
2. Mutual Admiration Society 3:45
Matt Dubey / Harry Karr
3. Steve Allen Theme 4:08
Steve Allen
4. I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face 2:42
Alan Jay Lerner / Frederick Loewe
5. Blowin' Country 6:15
Bud Shank
6. Love Nest 3:13
Otto Harbach / Walter Hirsch
7. As Long as There's Music 3:41
Sammy Cahn / Jule Styne
8. Just in Time 3:42
Betty Comden / Adolph Green / Jule Styne
9. Two Lost Souls 3:44
Richard Adler / Jerry Ross
10. Thanks for the Memory 4:30
Ralph Rainger / Leo Robin
11. A Romantic Guy, I 3:34
Bob Cooper / Bud Shank
12. Sweet Georgia Brown 3:41
Kenneth Casey / Maceo Pinkard
13. Gypsy in My Soul 3:23
Clay Boland / Moe Jaffe
14. I Want to Be Happy 2:31
Irving Caesar / Vincent Youmans
15. What'll I Do? 2:45
Irving Berlin
Credits :
Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Bud Shank
Bass – Don Prell
Drums – Chuck Flores
Guitar – Howard Roberts (tracks: 12 to 15)
Piano – Claude Williamson (tracks: 1 to 11)
Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Oboe – Bob Cooper

THE DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET - Paper Moon (1981-2014) CONCORD JAZZ SELECTION / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

The third of three Concord albums by this version of the Quartet (with Jerry Bergonzi on tenor, Chris Brubeck on bass and bass trombone and drummer Randy Jones) is the most rewarding of the trio although each one is recommended. Brubeck and the Coltrane-influenced tenor Bergonzi take consistently exciting solos on seven standards which are highlighted by "Music, Maestro, Please," "I Hear a Rhapsody" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"; Brubeck's solo version of "St. Louis Blues" is also noteworthy. by Scott Yanow
Tracklist:
1 Music, Maestro, Please! 8:58
Herbert Magidson / Allie Wrubel
2 I Hear a Rhapsody 6:06
Jack Baker / George Fragos / Dick Gasparre
3 Symphony [Instrumental] 5:10
Alex Alstone
4 I Thought About You 5:21
James Van Heusen / Johnny Mercer
5 It's Only a Paper Moon 5:34
Harold Arlen / E.Y. "Yip" Harburg / Billy Rose
6 Long Ago and Far Away 8:03
Ira Gershwin / Jerome Kern
7 St. Louis Blues 3:10
W.C. Handy
Credits:
Bass – Chris Brubeck (tracks: 1 to 4, 6, 7), Jerry Bergonzi (tracks: 5)
Bass Trombone – Chris Brubeck (tracks: 5)
Drums – Randy Jones
Piano – Dave Brubeck
Tenor Saxophone – Jerry Bergonzi

CHET BAKER - Sings And Plays With Bud Shank, Russ Freeman And Strings (1955-1987) MONO / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

With the growing popularity of Chet Baker's first vocal album, Chet Baker Sings, Pacific Jazz producer Richard Bock wanted to capitalize on both facets of his young star's abilities. Hence, the trumpeter turned vocalist entered the studio in 1955 with both his quartet featuring pianist Russ Freeman and an expanded sextet including bassist Red Mitchell, Bud Shank on flute, and various string players. The resulting album, Chet Baker Sings and Plays, helped set in stone the image of Baker as the jazz world's matinee idol and icon of '50s West Coast cool. His laid-back style -- a mix of '30s crooner and Miles Davis' nonet recordings -- appealed in its immediacy to a jazz public tiring of the hyper, athletic musicality of bebop. Similarly, his plaintive, warm trumpet sound was the more sensitive antidote to such brassy kings as Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. Others artists had performed many of these standards before, but as with "My Funny Valentine" on Chet Baker Sings, tracks like "Let's Get Lost," "Long Ago and Far Away," and "Just Friends" became definitively associated with Baker for the rest of his career. Chet Baker Sings and Chet Baker Sings and Plays are not only the two most important albums of Baker's career, but are classics of jazz. [The 2004 EMI reissue of Chet Baker Sings and Plays includes an EP version of "Let's Get Lost" not included on the original album.] by Matt Collar  
Tracklist:
1 Let's Get Lost 3:43
Frank Loesser / Jimmy McHugh
2 This Is Always 3:06
M. Gordon / Harry Warren
3 Long Ago and Far Away 3:57
Ira Gershwin / Jerome Kern
4 Someone to Watch Over Me 3:01
George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin
5 Just Friends 2:43
John Klenner / Sam M. Lewis
6 I Wish I Knew 3:59
M. Gordon / Harry Warren
7 Daybreak 2:41
Harold Adamson / Ferde Grofé
8 You Don't Know What Love Is 4:50
Gene DePaul / Don Raye
9 Grey December 3:41
Frank Campo
10 I Remember You 3:15
Johnny Mercer / Victor Schertzinger
Credits:
Bass – Carson Smith (tracks: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10), Red Mitchell (tracks: 2, 4, 6, 9)
Drums – Bob Neel
Flute – Bud Shank (tracks: 2, 4, 6, 9)
Harp – Corky Hale (tracks: 2, 4, 6, 9)
Piano – Russ Freeman
Trumpet, Vocals – Chet Baker

JIMMY GIUFFRE - Western Suite (1958-1998) FLAC (tracks), lossless

In late 1957, jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and iconoclast Jimmy Giuffre broke up the original Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Ralph Pena and Jim Hall. In early 1958, for a recording session, he formed a new trio without a rhythm section. For the album Trav'lin' Light, his new trio included Hall on guitar and the underrated trombone giant Bob Brookmeyer. For a year, they gigged together up and down the West Coast and played summer festivals, recorded, and even played clubs in New York. They became a trio of adventurous musicians for whom form was not an obstacle to creativity. As the year wound down, Giuffre wanted to document the trio once more, sensing its life was coming to an end. He composed the four-movement "Western Suite" with the trio's strengths in mind, as a way of documenting how they had come together as a band during that year. The piece itself stands as a crowning achievement in a career that included discovering the talents of Steve Swallow and Paul Bley and making the truly revolutionary recording Free Fall for Columbia three years later. The roots of that thinking lie in this set. Jim Hall's playing was dark, funky, ambiguous, sounding like drums and voices all at the same time -- particularly in the fourth movement. Brookmeyer became the pace setter. His lines were played as stage settings for the other two players to dialogue and narrate against. Giuffre, ever the storyteller, advanced the improvisation angle and wrote his score so that each player had to stand on his own as part of the group; there were no comfort zones. Without a rhythm section, notions of interval, extensions, interludes, and so on were out the window. He himself played some of his most retrained yet adventurous solos in the confines of this trio and within the form of this suite. It swung like West Coast jazz, but felt as ambitious as Copland's Billy the Kid. The record is filled out with two other tunes, one of Eddie Durham's, "Topsy," and the final moment of mastery this band ever recorded, the already classic "Blue Monk." The easy stroll of the front line with Brookmeyer's trombone strutting New Orleans' style is in sharp contrast to Giuffre's clarinet playing. Which carries the bluesy melody through three harmonic changes before he solos and then plays three more. Hall keeps it all on track, and somehow the piece sounds very natural this way, though unlike "Monk," there are no edges here -- everything is rounded off. This is as solid as any of the earlier or later Jimmy Giuffre 3 records, and two notches above Trav'lin' Light in that it reveals a fully developed sense of the responsibilities, possibilities, and freedoms of reinventing jazz for the trio. by Thom Jurek 

TEDDY CHARLES - Coolin' (1957) OJC / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Although this sextet session was officially a co-op, vibraphonist Teddy Charles and pianist Mal Waldron were really the main organizers. The group plays five originals by bandmembers that often have complex melodies but familiar chord changes. Trumpeter Idrees Sulieman excels on the one standard ("Everything Happens to Me"), altoist John Jenkins (making his recording debut) has some worthy solos and both bassist Addison Farmer and drummer Jerry Segal are fine in support. This obscure session (reissued on CD in the OJC series) is an excellent outing. by Scott Yanow
Tracklist:
1 Staggers 7:52
Mal Waldron
2 Song of a Star 7:11
John Jenkins
3 The Eagle Flies 7:38
Johnny Mandel / Idrees Sulieman
4 Bunni 8:02
Teddy Charles
5 Reiteration 7:56
Mal Waldron
6 Everything Happens to Me 4:33
Tom Adair / Matt Dennis
Credits:
Alto Saxophone – John Jenkins (tracks: 1 to 5)
Bass – Addison Farmer
Drums – Jerry Segal
Piano – Mal Waldron
Producer – Teddy Charles
Trumpet – Idrees Sulieman
Vibraphone [Vibes] – Teddy Charles

 TEDDY CHARLES - Coolin' (1957) 

(1995) RM / OJC / FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

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