Sunday, March 04, 2007

Fantastic Frank Strozier, Koch Jazz

Must have been Woody Shaw's Little Red's Fantasy that perked my ears up and made me look at the credits to see who was playing that alto saxophone. Allmusic compares Strozier to Jackie McLean. I'm thinking more of a hotter Lee Konitz, or of Bobby Watson. He often gets an almost tenor-like sound out of his horn on this. (Struck me on Off Shore, where he sounds kind of like Clifford Jordan.) Enjoyably complex hard-bop songs, mostly Strozier's, that you don't hear played constantly, too, which is refreshing.

Booker Little has some memorable trumpet solos and the rhythm section is Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb, who all sound like they enjoyed playing with this guy. I wanna get some more Frank Strozier.

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