Customer Reviews

3 4 5: The Verve Small Group Sessions

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once again, Norman Granz 50's Verve label serves up a gathering of swing-era champions lead by the multi-faceted Benny Carter. This tasteful and swinging selection of standards features Carter on sax in a trio, quartet and quintet format. The tunes selected provide ample room for great solos backed by swinging rhythm sections in all formats. Carter was known for a lot of things - composing, arranging etc. - but these studio sessions remind us why he's one of the Jazz Giants to quote the title of one of his other releases. You'll play this one over and over without tiring of it.

We lost a giant this week and this CD is all the proof you need. A fine collection of Benny Carter playing in trio, quartet and quintet settings accompanied by some of the finest swing and jazz artists. Carter's playing is always melodic and swinging while understated and subtle. On the trio tracks that kick this off Teddy Wilson's piano playing compliments Carter's alto perfectly and this section is my favorite. The entire set is priceless and really is a great repesentation of BC's talent and range. The tune selection is also wonderful. Highly recommended.

Lord knows, Verve perpetrated a lot of string-laden pseudo-jazz over the years, but you have to hand it to Granz----he also released stuff like THIS. Here's two albums worth of relaxed, finely-wrought material on one superb CD; real value for your money. These well-produced small-group sessions prove (as if it needed proving!) what a great instrumentalist Benny Carter was and is. (He's also a great arranger and composer as well, but that's beside the point.) This is an album that sinks deep into your brain and bones, and you're better for it. Carter goes back well into the swing era, yet the feel here is quite boppish. As of this writing, he's still around, still swinging. Long may he continue to.

BC, alto sax.
1-8. With Teddy Wilson, p, and Jo Jones, dr. 9-16. With Don Abney, p, George Duvivier, b, and Louis Bellson, dr. 17-19. With Oscar Peterson, p, Herb Ellis, guit, Ray Brown, b, Bobby White, dr.

This exceptionally strong album showcases Benny Carter, who should have been declared a National Treasure, and it does it without frills. That's a Good Thing when you have a player as strong and as inventive as Carter was. Carter, a masterful altoist and not much less talented trumpeter (he doesn't play trumpet here, just sax), continued to play eloquently up to his death at the age of 95 in 2003. Listening to him on these small group sessions, one is struck by the elegance of his tone, which is lyrical and smooth, matched only by fellow alto player Johnny Hodges. But one is struck too by the fluidity and inventiveness of his solo lines. Carter may not have played bop but he could phrase and move as flexibly as the great bop players could, and there is an architecture to his solos that makes them compelling listening.

The best cuts on this CD are the first eight trio sessions where Carter is matched with two players who truly were his equals -master pianist Teddy Wilson and master drummer Jo Jones. I grew into jazz in the earl fifties and the pianists I listened to then comped spare chords when they were accompanying a horn and played mostly strings of single notes when they soloed. What a pleasure it is to listen to Wilson's two-handed accompaniment behind Carter, which embraced full fleshed melody fragments and rhythm figures. Carter and Wilson obviously dug playing together. Jones plays well on brushes but so close is the rapport between Carter and Wilson that he is almost superfluous. Still, as always, he moves the pace along and his short drum solos, on brushes, are tasty and fun.

The quartet and quintet sessions suffer by comparison but are actually quite good. The piano seems undermiked on both sessions -not quite in balance with Carter's sax. Neither Abney nor Peterson is a Teddy Wilson but both are adequate and it is a pleasure to have Duvivier and Ray Brown on bass -both are strong players. Bellson is an adequate drummer, White ditto, and Herb Ellis doesn't seem to have much to do in his three cuts except play rhythm chords. But my oh my, does Carter wail on EVERY cut!

Do I have a favorite Carter solo? What about all of them?

Pelo fato de ter sido uma pessoa absolutamente normal durante toda sua longa carreira, Carter não costuma ser muito festejado nos meios jazzísticos. Sem a ira dionisíaca de um Charles Mingus, sem a excentricidade esquizofrênica de um Thelonious Monk e sem o sorriso perigoso de Duke Ellington, Carter dificilmente é citado como um dos maiores músicos do jazz. É grande o engano ou flagrante a injustiça colocá-lo no segundo escalão.

Carter é, entre outras coisas, o melhor arranjador da transição entre as décadas de 1920 e 1930, época em que Heisenberg proclamava o princípio da incerteza na Física. Tendo aprendido o ofício da orquestração por conta própria, chegou a rivalizar e até mesmo superar alguns mestres da época, como Don Redman. Fugindo ao modelo de sucesso fácil oferecido pelo swing, estilo que assolava o EUA nesses tempos, Carter construiu uma obra genial com humildade, independência e sensibilidade. Sua obra somente pode ser comparada à montanhesca criação da dupla Ellington & Strayhorn. Ao contrário do trabalho de Ellington, essencialmente instrumental, as composições de Carter são extremamente `cantáveis', característica que comprova sua veia de grande solista.

Além do trabalho como arranjador e compositor, Carter era um exímio instrumentista, capaz de cantar, tocar piano, trombone, trompete e os saxofones soprano, alto e tenor. Embora excelente trompetista, foi com o sax alto que Carter se destaca como um dos mais importantes improvisadores do jazz: suave, doce e tranqüilo, nem mesmo a velocidade assustadora imposta por Charlie Parker foi capaz de ofuscar a beleza de seus solos. Sua sonoridade única influenciou vários mestres do saxofone, entre eles Sonny Rollins. Carter era o tipo de pessoa que, assim como o inigualável Lester Young, apesar de negro, nunca teve vergonha ou malícia em negar a profunda influência recebida de Frank Trumbauer, um excepcional saxofonista branco renegado no jazz por sua cor. Para Carter a beleza da música estava acima do racismo irracional.

Carter provou com seu trabalho que nem toda música doce e agradável é necessariamente música de elevador ou de consultório dentário. Sua obra comprova que a música pode ser inteligente e complexa sem ser necessariamente chata e inaudível. Ele sabia, mais e melhor que todos nós, que o sucesso obedece cegamente ao princípio da incerteza, principalmente When Lights Are Low. Mas o mestre, é claro, não se importava com isso.

This CD contains trios, quartets, and quintets -- all featuring Benny Carter, and composed in various combinations with these outstanding musicians:

Teddy Wilson, Jo Jones, Don Abney, George Duviver, Louie Bellson, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Bobby White.

There are 19 tracks for a total playing time of 76 minutes. Every track is just perfect.

O.K., if one CD of this isn't enough for you, then also consider Benny Carter "The King" and Art Tatum "The Complete Pablo Group Masterpieces", both from Pablo Records. Each of these recordings has a different set of musicians. My own opinion is that for Benny Carter, this (3,4,5 Sessions) is the ideal combination.

This wonderful disc could be the best of anyone's collection: it is excellent jazz, and yet is such fine art that it almost crosses over into art music--"classical."
The trio cuts of 1938 (nos. 1-8) were long hidden until the canny Japanese issued them with immaculate sound--thus showing their cognizance and appreciation of Western aesthetic matters. Just set "June in January" to repeat, and listen to it a few dozen times: Carter's exquisite alto timbre and melodic manipulations ease the electrochemical activity in the brain; Teddy Wilson's meditative piano solos calm the nerves while stimulating the soul; Jo Jones' heartbeat rhythms with brush on smooth snare and bass drums ease all tensions: this is over 4mins of delicious nepenthe.
The remainder of the tracks offer similar delights: some up-beat, some down-, this is Benny Carter at this best. One might call him, "the Coleman Hawkins of the alto." Parker and Stitt are great on alto: they bop hard; but Carter is so gentle and soulful that these lines rival the ambience of classical trio, quartet, and quintet ensembles.
The price $$ is a giveaway-bargain. Please do yourself a favor and get this disc for yourself; or, bless a friend and give it as a gift: they'll love it and think fondly of you!

From the "Chocolate Dandies" sessions in the wee 30s through the Pablo years, this giant of the alto sax towered over many other better known names. His 1946 work in the traditional swing vein ranks among the best swing material ever recorded - "Cadillac Slim", "Out Of My Way"...and even the 1933 tune with his vocal, "Swing It". This CD compilation is a treat, with sweet and graceful stuff with Teddy Wilson and Jo Jones through the stuff with Oscar Peterson. His trumpet playing was also underrated simply because he didn't go to it often. His arrangements are legendary, and his Hollywood scoring work ("M Squad" among others) often brilliant. This CD is a GEM from a true jazz master.

I'm not surprised that this record has received unanimously 5-star ratings (so far). Benny Carter's playing on this set of standards is fluid and exuberant, and the small groups provide impeccable support, especially Jo Jones on drums. I don't know if this is the best Benny Carter record ever (since I haven't heard everything), but it is one of the best recordings that I know of that feature swing-era musicians in small group settings. It ranks with the best of the Benny Goodman groups with Lionel Hampton or Pres with Teddy. Once the toll-booth guy, as I was fumbling for change and apologizing, said it didn't matter because he dug this music so much.