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. alliance is almost a sequel to the first. As and Precious Lord, they are to be commended his set of foot cymbals, fitted his kazoo and harmonica to a harness, and invented the before, Neal Hefti furnishes tasty vignettes for the sincerity of their approach. More to highlight a soloist or particular set of freqnent reunions should dispel a certain fotdella, an ingenious substitute for a stringed bass. In addition, he is likely to instruments against the rich ensemble sound stiffness in the non-secular numbers. It is of the band. Frank Wess draws a major as­ the one jazz item in Elektra's initial stereo hum a trombone solo, on I'm Going To Meet My Loving Mother, or vocalize a drum break, signment and his fiute dances lightly through release not available previously in monopbonic Oute, Scoot, and Late Date, each a fetching form. The engineering by Dave Hancock on Tiger Rag, and his rhythmic pulse is un­ fiagging on the difficult Fingerbuster. His exercise as concise as its title. The trom­ brings the sound into sharp focus and the bonists are led by Al Grey on two numbers, mastering is credited to Rudy Van Gelder. treatment of traditional material is highly original, but the stamp of authenticity is on . and the tenor saxes are featured in a chase these and his own compositions. These in­ episode by Billy Mitchell and Frank Foster Duke Ellington: Black, Brown and Beige clude a prison song, 99 Years, and Memphis Oll Gount Down. Trumpeter Snookie Young Columbia CS8015 Boogie. tenderly explores the slow, balladic Pensive Although desse and Big Bill never met, Miss,. and crackling riff tunes spot Joe New­ Fifteen years have passed since this compo­ Leadbelly once paid the former a visit and man on Sloo Foot, and Thad d ones on Pony sition was hurriedly finished for a Carnegie he is well equipped to sing their blues. When Tail. Hall concert, a!ld it is still not completely producers of televil!ion jazz shows get around The Count restricts his piano to his usual recorded. One consolation in the delay is to investigating the origins of their subject, canny phrases and prefatory bits.· There is, that Mahalia dackson consented at long last they can do no better than search out Fuller in fact, considerably more Hefti than Basie to sing with a jazz orchestra. Another is the at his workaday tas;k of operating a jack­ in this collection. The band is currently in an timing of its release to coincide with the in­ hammer in the Bay ,Area. Meanwhile, the orderly state of fiux, gradually changing its troduction of the stereo disc. For it was blues will live by courtesy of a few perceptive style and widening its scope. It seems odd to Ellington who pioneered many of the fea­ record companies. find Heft!, who wrote his best arrangements tures, now routine with big bands, best heard while simulating the sparkling heads created in stereo. His men developed the call-and-· by early Basieites, drawing it closer to Broad­ answer of muted horns to a fine art, and the The Banjo Kings, Vol. 2 way and the more conventional swing settings. tonal strength of Harry Carney's baritone , Good Time Jazz L12029 He is more likely to go back to the J eepers sax was added more than thirty years ago. Oreepers figure of A Little Tempo, Please, Finally, it comes at a time when his or­ Red Nichols: In Love With Red than the blues. Where a resolute rhythmic ganization is undergoing one of its periodic Capitol T999 pulse once drove the band, It is now an­ upsurges of creative activity which may be chored to sleek, carefully-played riff patterns. reflected in critical and popular acclaim a The jazz of the 20's was not always raucous That they succeed so well is a tribute to year or so from now. and tried to avoid the razz-ma-tazz featured Hefti's ingenuity, Sonny Payne's exciting The first section, Work Song, begins to a on some present-day commercialized recre­ drumming, and the brilliant section work. foreboding beat on Sam Woodyard's drums ations of the era. Few are more aware of the Any of tbe earthy qualities which once dis­ before a vigorous statement by full orchestra fact than the musicians who gravitated to tinguished the band comes from individual expresses the curiosity of a people set down the relative security of the Hollywood studioR. soloists at this point. The recording is clear in a strange land, explored by Harry Carney, Since 1951, a Los Angeles group known as and embraces the group's dynamic force al­ Shorty Baker and Quentin dackson in thpir The Banjo Kings has demonstrated the most as fully as its predecessor. solos. Gome Sunday is introduced instru­ startling possibilities of one of our few native For those persons desiring to recall the mentally, and then the two themes are set instruments. Dick Roberts and fellow mon­ origins of the band in the Kansas City of the forth together by the stimulating horns of arch, Red Roundtree, may yet save it from 1930's, Capitol restores a dozen sides from becoming extinct. Six selections are reclaimed the perioil. day McShann plays Moten Swing, Cat Anderson and Britt Woodman against from a lO-inch LP, and eight items recorded the entire voice of the band. Like the best and Bus Moten presents It's 80 Hard to Laugh of Duke's work, his writing for Miss dackson last year extend it to standard size. On these or Smile, the lovely theme he wrote with his is a new experience in music. She sings with last, Vito Mumolo adds the voice of his tenor brother. dulia Lee sings four numbers and religiOUS intensity and deep insight, humming banjo and the pianist is Stan Wrightsman doshua dohnson delivers his haunting Days. a tender final chorus. with Country Washbourne or Ray Leather: Also heard are Tommy Douglass, dessie Price In the main, her accompaniment is piano, wood on bass, and Nick Fatool on drums. Crown Prince Waterford, and Charlotte Man: bowed bass and Ray Nance's violin, and the Their expression of the sentiments of School field. The only track suffering overly from the sudden shift from full band presents the Days, The Band Played On, and I Want a Girl age of the recording is by Walter Brown, engineers with a knotty problem. Columbia are skilled and pleasantly tuneful. accompanied on tenor sax by Ben Webster. seems to bring its "black box" into play to Almost as much an American institution as dohn Cameron Swayze, a reporter in the city solve it, and in stereo her voice appears to the banjo, Red Nichols aims his latest effort at the time, delves into his memories on the move forward from the left at the height of at the popular market, perhaps in prepara­ liner and traces the careers of some of the a phrase to the center and recede on the tion for the motion picture of his life story artists. A valuable album for Hefti, or any­ right. Recorded in Hollywood, the monophonic and augments his Five Pennies with a choru~ one else. version is most successful, hut stereo holds and a dozen strings. He plays his signature more interest and plays back well on a single Wail of the Winds, and dohn Scott Trotter'~ channel. A violin iuterlude restates the theme for the George Gobel show. doe Rush­ Andre Previn & His Pals: Gigi theme before Miss dackson concludes by ton's bass saxophone enlivens Manhattan Rag. Contemporary C,548 singing the Twenty-third Psalm. The arrangements by Heinie Beau and Bobby Hammack, who provides a framework for the The fourth modern jazz reading of a leader's trumpet on Bugler's Lament, keep the musical show by Andre Previn and cohorts strings under control and the music is light ditrers from its predecessors in that the MONOPHONIC and made for dancing. pianist was involved with the Lerner and Loewe score from its inception. As musical Big Bill Broonzy: The Blues director of the film, hp was responsible for a EmArcy MG36137 Basie Plays Hefti RouleHe R52011 number of arrangements, adapted background .: Jesse Fuller Good Time Jazz L12031 K. C. In The 30's Capitol T1 057 music, and conducted the studio orchestra. Such familiarity, in this case, breeds a cer­ Big Bill put his life into his songs the Except for the absence of Eddie Davis the second Basie album under his new tain insight and only the ballads remain close simple everyday joys and trials of existence reco~ding to the original. Gigi is revealed in the dimly­ and now he is gone. His death coincided veiled hues of a Marie Laurencin painting, closely with the release of this collection and I Remember It Well is colored iu the im­ dating from 1951. It was rpcorded whe~ pressionistic hues of the period. his blues ~~re losing favor in this country, Some of the best moments come from the though gammg respect in Europe, and dis­ expansion of transitory themes in to sus­ appeared into the vaults. Unlike his two tained compositions. A Toujours, a back­ volumes for Folkways which allow him the ground piece, becomes an exhilirating vehicle leeway of an LP, these dozen tracks average for bassist Red Mitchell. Previn preempts three minutes each and are representative of Aunt Alioia's March for himself improvis­ most sides made during his thirty-odd years ing thirteen challenging blues c'horuses to of visiting studios.

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