Two-Sentence Jazz Reviews, May-June 2017—Part II

Here's the second installment of the brief two-sentence reviews of jazz records that I heard during my recent European trip and that I originally published in my Facebook page.

The Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn, Vol. 2 (Atlantic, 1959)

Recorded live in Lenox, MA, in the summer of 1958, this date showcases the usual elegance of the forward-thinking Modern Jazz Quartet along with tenorist Sonny Rollins on two tracks (on Vol. 1, recorded two years earlier at the same place, it's Jimmy Giuffre that guests). The carefully chosen set list works perfectly, mixing standards with tunes by John Lewis, Milt Jackson, and Charlie Parker, and the two tracks with Rollins ("Bags' Groove" and "Night in Tunisia") are the highlights of an album that is superb all around.

Oscar Peterson Trio + One (Mercury, 1964 / Verve, 2007)

Cut for Mercury in 1964, this is one of Oscar Peterson's most relaxed, bluesiest dates of the 1960s, featuring a special guest in trumpeter Clark Terry, who plays both flugelhorn and trumpet. Peterson's piano playing is characteristically dazzling, as usual, and the comfortable interplay between his trio (Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums) and Terry is a joy to hear, making this an essential entry in Peterson's vast, rich discography.

Jan Lundgren Trio—Svenska Landskap (Sittel, 2003 / Fog Arts, 2017)

This 2003 gem now available for digital download and streaming finds Jan Lundgren and his trio (Mattias Svensson on bass and Morten Lund on drums) on a musical journey around Sweden via jazz versions of traditional tunes and a couple of very appropriate Lundgren originals. The playing is swift and fresh on the uptempo tracks and lyrical and introspective on the ballads, and the album as a whole won't disappoint anyone who takes a chance on it. [You may read a more detailed Jazz Flashes review about this album here.]

Freddie Hubbard—Born to Be Blue (Pablo, 1982)

This is a lovely, very recommendable late-career album by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard in a percussion-laden sextet that also features the great Harold Land on tenor sax and flute. It features some very engaging uptempo numbers (like "Joy Spring," for instance) and some typically sensitive, lyrical ballad playing such as the beautiful title track.

Sarah Vaughan Swings Again, 1967

Not that Sarah Vaughan had quit swinging by 1967, but she had been concentrating on more pop-oriented albums such as Viva! Vaughan, Sarah Vaughan Sings the Mancini Songbook, Pop Artistry, and The New Scene in 1965-66 alone. For her final Mercury outing, she was back on jazz territory with a swinging big band session that was issued under the very appropriate title of Sassy Swings Again. The psychedelic look of the album's cover has more to do with the time period than with the music in its grooves. For this project, Vaughan enlisted the help of four different arrangers—Bob James, J.J. Johnson, Manny Albam, and Thad Jones—but the results are surprisingly consistent, as though only one arranger had been employed. The sessions, held over two days in January 1967, included such top jazzmen as Kai Winding, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Newman, Benny Golson, and Phil Woods, so the sound is powerful and exciting. In the company of these outstanding musicians, Sassy was definitely swinging again.

The energy is evident from the very first track, a scat-filled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown," taken at a characteristically breakneck tempo. The song selection is full of classic standards ("S'posin'," "I Want to Be Happy," "Take the A Train"), all of them sung at a medium or fast pace, without much room for ballads. Vaughan even extracts some swing out of Irving Berlin's "All Alone," which Frank Sinatra had recently used as the title track of one of his lesser-known slow albums, and digs deep for some rarely heard numbers like Richard Rodgers's "The Sweetest Sounds," Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's "On the Other Side of the Tracks," and Alan Jay Lerner's "I Had a Ball." Sassy's elegantly swinging reading of the Tony Bennett hit "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" is impressive, and she also has a chance to prove that she can tackle a blues standard convincingly on "Everyday I Have the Blues," one of the standout tracks on the LP. This isn't Vaughan's best-remembered album (in fact, it wasn't until a Facebook friend recently alerted me to it that I was even reminded that it existed; thanks Luis!) but it's a wholly satisfying jazz date with some high-class sidemen that deserves a serious listen.