CD1
1. Festival
2. Clark Bars
3. Daddy-0's Patio
4. Blues
5. Impeccable
6. Paul's Idea
7. Phat Bach
8. Milli-Terry
9. Funky
10. The Girl I Call Baby
11. Diminuendo and Crescendo In Blue
12. I Cover The Waterfront
13. C- Jam Blues
14. Evad
15. It Don't Mean A Thing
16. Autobahn
17. Willow Weep For Me
18. Hildegard
19. Ocean Motion
20. Jivin' With Fritz
CD2
1. Serenade To A Bus Seat
2. Pannonica No.1
3. Pea-Eyes
4. Satin Doll
5. Daniel's Blues
6. Mean To Me
7. Blues For The Champ Of Champs
8. Circeo
9. Clark Bars
10. Pannonica No.2
11. Lonely One
12. Don't Blame Me
13. It Don't Mean A Thing
14. Take Nine
15. Everything Happens To Me
Paul Gonsalves - Tenor sax
Clark Terry - Trumpet, flugelhorn
Jimmy Woode - Bass
Sam Woodyard - Drums
Willie Jones - Piano (CD1, tracks 1-10)
Carlos Diernhammer - Piano (CD1, tracks 11-20)
Raymond Fol - Piano (CD2, tracks 1-11)
Porter Kilbert - Baritone sax (CD2, tracks
12-15)
Junior Mance - Piano (CD2, tracks 12-15)
Chubby Jackson - Bass (CD2, tracks 12-15)
Gene Miller - Drums (CD2, tracks 12-15)
Most musicians ever employed
by Duke Ellington have distinctive sounds,
as Ellington chose people who could bring
their own individuality to his band. This
is certainly true of Paul Gonsalves and Clark
Terry - the two players featured on this double
album. Both have immediately recognisable
sounds which are unmistakable - and very different
from one another. Gonslaves' tone was slippery
but Terry's was (and still is) precise and
clipped. While Paul sounded as if he could
go on playing forever (as, indeed, he seemed
to in his famously extended solo at the 1956
Newport Jazz Festival), Clark's solos are
concise and well-rounded. You might summarise
Clark Terry as a predominantly staccato musician,
while Paul Gonsalves was a legato player,
running notes into one another without seemingly
needing to take a breath.
It is this very contrast
between the two men's styles that makes their
collaborations so fascinating. In a way, these
recordings might be compared with the Ellington
small-group recordings of the thirties and
forties, when some of the Duke's men got together
(often with Ellington himself at the piano)
for some relaxed sessions. As with those recordings,
these sessions from the late 1950s allow the
musicians to stretch out in familiar company.
The familiarity is strengthened by the presence
on all the quintet tracks of two other Ellingtonians:
bassist Jimmy Woode and drummer Sam Woodyard,
although the pianists vary from one session
to another.
This album squeezes onto
two CDs all the recordings that Gonsalves
and Terry made with a quintet, comprising
the contents of three LPs: Cookin (1957),
Diminuendo, Crescendo and Blues (1958)
and Clark Terry featuring Paul Gonsalves
(1959). As a bonus, there are also four tracks
from a sextet session recorded in 1956. The
recordings were made respectively in Chicago,
Munich, Paris and New York.
Both CDs are full of cherishable
playing. Paul and Clark work seamlessly together.
Their togetherness is not surprising, as they
knew each other not only for many years in
the Duke Ellington orchestra but they played
together for Count Basie in the late forties.
Just hear the way they blend in the theme
statement of the very first tune: Festival,
leading into a blues solo from Paul which
contains reminders of that Newport Jazz Festival
solo the year before.
The tracks are too numerous
to describe in detail but some highspots include
the gloriously laid-back Evad; Sam
Woodyard's drum intro to Autobahn;
Gonsalves' smoky tenor sax on Thelonious Monk's
Pannonica No. 1; Clark Terry's beautifully
mellow performance on Blues for the Champ
of Champs; and the new slant given to
It Don't Mean a Thing.
If you like swinging jazz
with plenty of bluesy tunes, this is for you.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Lone
Hill Jazz LHJ 10339 
