Mosca will be forever associated with Lennie Tristano, who was both his friend and teacher, so it is no surprise that this recording, discovered after his (Mosca's) death in 2007, is dedicated to his mentor.
The Tristano school is very much an esoteric group of musicians who found their own voice even though the prevailing wind came from the almost all-encompassing influence of Charlie Parker. This exclusive clique, all Tristano alumni, included among others Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Peter Ind, Arnold Fishkin and Billy Bauer. Mosca recorded or gigged with most of them going back as far as 1949 although this, his first solo recording comes from 1970 (there are also a couple of later tracks from 1997 added - ten years before his death).
Although Tristano's teachings can be felt, Mosca is very much his own man. He's explorative, harmonically adventurous always finding the right inversion to define his individuality. From the later session Bix's In a Mist is treated with respect without sounding dated proving just how harmonically advanced Beiderbecke was in his day and how astute Mosca was to recognise it. It also poses the question as to whether In a Mist had any influence either consciously or unconsciously on Tristano. Mosca's decision to record it all those years later suggest that maybe it had - or perhaps it was Debussy who was the connecting factor between all three.
Getting back to the earlier tracks, they're all demanding of attentive listening. So much going on, blink and you miss it! The two-handed interplay would have been worthy of JSB had he been born a few hundred years later.
Available on Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD5067 it is attractively packaged with an informative booklet containing an interview between bassist Don Messina who arranged the recording with the cooperation of the Mosca family and tenor saxist Jimmy Halperin who'd studied with both Lennie and Sal which gives further insight to the recording.
A tribute, not just to Lennie Tristano but also to Sal Mosca and to remastering engineer Garry Rindfuss and the team who did such an excellent job on transferring the music from the original reel to reel recording. Lance
(1970 tks) Medley 1: You go to my Head/Sweet Georgia Brown; It's the Talk of the Town; All the Things You Are; Prelude to a Kiss; Medley 2: Night and Day/These Foolish Things/That Old Feeling; Sweet and Lovely; (1997 tks) In a Mist; Stella by Starlight
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