Wailing on the West Coast: Conte Candoli & Lou Levy - West Coast Wailers

Conte Candoli (trumpet); Bill Holman (tenor sax); Lou Levy (piano); Leroy Vinnegar (bass); Lawrence Marable (drums)

West coast jazz has, with the passage of time, become somewhat unfairly labelled as bland and, by inference, considered to be inferior to what was happening on America's east coast or, to be more precise, in NYC during the 1950s.

It wasn't a racial thing as has been suggested - musicians such as Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Criss and Hampton Hawes were active in L.A. jamming and recording with their white counterparts. And it certainly wasn't a musical thing as musicians such as Art Pepper, Gerry Mulligan and the musicians on this album prove.

Last night, as I looked despairingly at the several crates of CDs I've received for review over the past fifteen years of BSH, most of which I'll never play again and will probably end up in a landfill site, I sought out something to sooth my savaged breast. I closed my eyes and pulled an album from one of the shelves that contain the albums that will never see a landfill site - at least not in my lifetime - and hit on this one from 1955.

It's a beaut! The brothers Candoli were something else. Pete (not present) lit up one of the Herman herds with his spectacular stratospheric trumpet work whilst Conte occupied the jazz trumpet chair with Stan Kenton and it was on Kenton's album Sketches on Standards that I first heard him when he blew a great solo on Pennies From Heaven.

Conte's front line partner in 'the West Coast Wailers', Bill Holman, another ex Kentonite, blows post-Lester tenor with Levy and the rhythm section - and of course Candoli - setting the studio on fire. The whole thing sparkles. The explosive Lover Come Back to me, the easy pace of Jordu and the ballads Lover Man and Flamingo, along with the other tracks have set me on a mission to dig out more albums from the Pacific coast - watch this space. I wish the late Dave Weisser was still with us - what a discussion we could have had...

I erroneously assumed that this record had originally been released on the Contemporary label as so many of the west coast albums were. However, it is actually on the Atlantic label. Lance

Lover Come Back to me; Comes Love; Lover Man; Pete's Alibi; Cheremoya; Jordu; Flamingo; Marcia Lee.

Ps: The whole album can be heard on YouTube.