Budd Johnson and the Four Brass Giants: Riverside (OJC)
Johnson was a highly-regarded, big-toned Texas tenor, composer and arranger who worked with both his Swing-era peers and with the succeeding bop generation of Parker and Gillespie. In this neglected minor mainstream jazz classic, on CD for the first time, both traditions blend seamlessly; the four brassmen of the apocalypse are Nat Adderley, Harry Edison, Clark Terry and Ray Nance, while a rhythm section that would make the dead dance includes Tommy Flanagan, Joe Benjamin and Herb Lovelle. It's marvellous stuff; Johnson's arranging skills channel the competitive edge, inevitable with such a heavyweight brass team, into constantly fruitful directions, his own tenor is superb and the results have a vibrancy and immediacy that belie their age.
- Ray Comiskey
Los Angeles Jazz Quartet (Naxos)
The Los Angeles Jazz Quartet is a working group of quality musicians - and it shows. There is an ease of interaction, an understanding of space and how to use it and, above all, a unity of performance which marks them as an impressive outfit. On this attractive release, recorded last year, their subtle, unhackneyed approach to the familiar - 'Round Midnight, Time Remembered - and their own material reveal them as capable of taking on virtually any challenge, while an unconventional Blues For Old Friends and a highly chromatic Glimpse underline a willingness to push the envelope out to do so. Tenor Chuck Manning is outstanding, with guitarist Larry Koonse, bassist Darek Oleskiewicz and drummer Kevin Tullius not far behind.
- Ray Comiskey