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Some of My Best Friends Are… The Sax Players

Ray Brown Trio

℗ 1995 Telarc Records CD 83388

Ray Brown Trio • 1995 • Some of My Best Friends Are… The Sax Players

Most musicians know each other," mused Ray Brown, during a break in the recording of this album. "We might be working in a lot of different settings, piaying a jam session, on a record date, in a big band or a small group, but somehow we manage to meet, and get to know each other. And after so many years, you get to play with just about everybody, sooner or later, in one fashion or another."

This is the second of Ray's albums where he has been able to bring some of those long-standing friendships and acquaintanceships into genuine musical partnerships, inviting a cross section of saxophonists, old and new, to join his trio in the studio. Some of the associations go way back, such as Benny Carter and Stanley Turrentine. Others are more recent. Jesse Davis ran into Ray at a Colorado jazz party, and after a few numbers it was clear both men would enjoy the chance to work together again.

Few bassists in history are as widely recorded or as adaptable musical company as Ray. He has been the spark in countless rhythm sections from his eariy years with Dizzy Gillespie's bands and the nascent Modern Jazz Quartet, through his years with Oscar Peterson and J.A.T.P, and right up to the present via the LA. Four and many of his own groups. All that experience gives him both a direct connection to the heritage of jazz, and a feeling for the music that transiates directly into the immediacy of the playing of his own trio.

This is a group that almost without warm-up, can hit a sympathetic groove whether playing by themselves or accompanying a soloist. Ray's sense of time, his choice of tempo, and his keen ear for a swift head arrangement, coupled with Benny Green's formidable power of concentration and enviable keyboard technique, plus Greg Hutchinson's deft and sympathetic percussion, are instant guarantees both of quality and a timeless link into the jazz tradition.

When Joe Lovano arrived to cut his tracks for the album, it was early on a chilly Monday morning in late November, the wind gusting along one of the bleaker parts of New York's 53rd Street outside the studio. Within minutes, winter coats and hats lloid aside, Lovano and the trio had hit the groove of a late-night jazz date, his sumptuous ballad-playing on Easy Living and jam-session energy on How High the Moon sounding just like the end of a long evening together, the musicians hitting an easy and relaxed rapport that meant few takes and a chance to sit back and enjoy the playbacks.

As each saxophonist arrived, Roy talked over the final details of repertoire, and then asked about the influences that had meant most to his guest, Some unexpected things emerged, perhaps mostsurprisingly Ralph Moore's choice of Louis Armstrong. "When I was twelve or thirteen, my mother had some of his records around the house. I slowly got more and more into Pops, and in

the end, I demanded a trumpet, and got one." Now one of the most sought-after tenor saxophonists around, and currently playing in the Tonight Show band, Moore's choice of (When It's) Slepy Time Down South, for many years Pops' signature tune, pays homage to his first great influence.

Benny Carter, teasing Roy about the fact he was young such a long time ago (he was born in 1907), took the trumpet influence further than Ralph, and combined playing trumpet and saxophone for many years. His great influence on trumpet, he recalled, was Bubber Miley. On saxophone, "I remember hearing Frankie Trumbauer, and Johnny Hodges, of course, but then he and I were contemporaries so that wasn't quite the some. Another early influence was Coleman Hawkins with blues singer Mamie Smith, And then there was the saxophone virtuoso Rudy Wiedoeft, but I can't remember after ail this time whether I heard him playing alto or C-melody sax, the instrument Trumbouer used to play."

For Joe Lovano, the first influences came from his father, Tony Lovano, who played saxophone around Cleveland, Ohio, and whose playing and record collection were the sounds Joe heard as he grew up. Ray and Stanley Turrentine (the "Pittsburgh Flash") laughed together over shared memories of Illinois Jacquet. Ray recalled for a fascinated audience on both sides of the studio glass his own experiences with Charlie Parker, after Jesse Davis named Bird as his major influence. Joshua Redman, one of the most amazing saxophonists to come along in decades, has as one of his major influences Lester Young.

"I don't like to tell people of this stature what they should play," says Brown, "As on the piano album, Some of My Best Friends Are... The Piano Players, all these guys are accomplished musicians, So they come in, we talk about songs, pick a key and we play"

It all seems so simple, but without Brown's acute ear for what will work (a change of key here, an adjustment of tempo there, a substitute chord sequence somewhere else) it would have been hard to achieve the extraordinary balance this session has, between the informality of a jam session and a formal studio date. Recording engineer Jack Renner, who's seen more sessions than most, commented at one point as Ray detected a minor disagreement over chords between his soloist and the trio: "He's not only a master of changes, he's a master of the changes to the changes!" Benny Green says the same - over three years of working in Ray's trio have been, he says, a constant education from one of the masters.

So here are the results, A few things aren't on the album. You won't be able to see how Stanley Turrentine, after a temporary setback while his saxophone developed a fault and he'd had to send out for a replacement, tore into God Bless the Child - his whole frame moving as he preached into the mike. And you won't see the wide grins of enthusiasm from trio and guest saxophonist alike as Benny Green produced solo after solo of such swing and quality that his colleagues were genuinely impressed every time. What you will hear, along with the greatness of all the guest soloists, is a master at work. No one put it better than Joshua Redman: "There was a time when everyone had an 'all-time favorite' on each instrument. In today's climate, we tend not to go in for "best" or 'favorite', but I have to say that working with Ray has shown me someone who is unquestionably one of the greatest musicians ever to play the bass. He's so completely mastered the insument that he can execute any idea with total control. But he also plays with force, soul, and passion. Those two concepts sometimes work against each other, but in Ray they've achieved the perfect combination." — Alyn Shipton.

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