The second of the two vinyl pièces de résistance that I referred to in my previous post. It is excellent but far removed from what I expected. The Blue Mitchell album was everything I hoped for and got. I expected this, given the personnel to be an equally mind-blowing blast which it both was and wasn't!
Let me elaborate ...
Back in the day when I first hit on Howard McGhee I was hooked. West Coast recordings with Bird, small group recordings with Fats Navarro, Cubop City with Machito and some amazing stuff with JATP - McGhee was the man. He seemed to be a musician with a foot in more than one camp. He could blow bebop he could play swing and, I'm sure, if he'd been asked to and needed the dough, he could have sat in with Kid Ory at the Beverly Cavern.
This delightful album doesn't quite fall into any of the above bags and reveals a relatively rare side to this sometimes overlooked jazz giant. Comparing this with the Blue Mitchell album that had me on the ropes from the get go, Dusty Blue doesn't jump up and kick you where it hurts, the approach is more seductive, although Groovin' High does serve as a reminder of just how hard McGhee could kick ass!
Recorded in 1960 for Bethlehem and released in the UK on Parlophone, the septet is featured on four of the nine tracks with McGhee using just the rhythm section on the others. I'd liked to have heard more by the full band - Roland Alexander being a tenor sax man worthy of greater recognition in his lifetime (1935-2006). Pepper Adams and Bennie Green, also acquit themselves at the level we have always associated with them but, at the end of the day, it is McGhee's ballad playing on A Cottage For Sale that clinches it for me - Lance
Available on New Lands - August 26. MORE.
Dusty Blue; Sound of Music; I Concentrate on You; Sleep Talk; Park Avenue Petite; Flyin' Colors; With Malice Towards None; Groovin' High; A Cottage For Sale
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