Listening to Prestige 307: The Prestige All Stars

There are a lot of fields of entertainment and the arts in which one can speak of “an embarrassment of riches,” where too much of a good thing starts to weigh it down or actually diffuse it. An NBA All Star Game is never going to be as good as a game between two closely matched teams. You probably wouldn’t really want to have Leonardo and Raphael working on the same canvas, although it might be fun for a minute.

Fortunately, this is rarely the case in jazz. In jazz, the more great players you pull together on one bandstand, the more excitement, the more richness you’re going to have. That’s why there isn’t a jazz fan alive who wouldn’t give his left arm to have been at that speakeasy in Kansas City where Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young dueled it out, toe to toe. That’s why Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic jams with, say, Charlie Parker and Lester Young, are so prized today.

That’s why if you take Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Shirley Scott, already a dynamic aggregation, and tell a jazz fan you’re adding Coleman Hawkins to the group, he or she is going to whoop for joy. Then if you announce that you’re not stopping there, you’re going throw in Arnett Cobb (Yeah, yeah!) and Buddy Tate (Yeah, yeah, yeah!)

So what happens when you get four tenor sax greats together for a session? Well, first of all, you have some great section playing. Then, you have four guys loving what their peers are doing, and encouraging each other to one hot solo after another. And then...wait a second. It’s not just four great tenormen, is it?

It’s not just tenors.

And it’s not just men.

I’ve talked before about how the small group Shirley Scott is different from the organ trio Shirley, but maybe not so different. In the trio she is constantly exploring the different ways that an organ can sound. With a small group, she is constantly finding new ways to be a part of that group, to push and cajole the sax guys into new places. I’ve talked before about how good she is, but I have to come back to it because I think I’m just realizing, in this set, just how good she is. Maybe it’s working with those different voices.

In “Light and Lovely,” she and George Duvivier have an extended duet that leaves one wondering, if they are the title, which is which?

What is this kind of music? Davis and Clark are certainly in the vanguard of the soul jazz movement, but these other guys aren’t. In recent years, we hear a lot about “mainstream jazz” and “straight-ahead jazz,” and both terms have very precise, if not always clear, definitions which one is not to stray from (or to confuse the two) by musicians who were not really a part of bebop, but who did live on this planet and were aware of its power and importance. So these are guys who are not living in the past, or particularly looking toward the future, but are playing the kind of music they like, and playing it sweetly and completely.

This is listed as an All Stars date, which means it was released with no leader given for the session, but the names of all the participants (in this case, all four tenormen) on the cover. It would be rereleased later as a Davis/Scott session.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have
lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since
fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind
reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this
music.

                                                                                                                                      
--Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time
period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of
the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The
stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and
give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell