Various - Jam Session, Vol. 18

Steeplechase 31594

Tenor saxophone summits are my favorite jam session configuration. I’m a firm believer in the pleasures procurable from teams ranging from Lester and Herschel to Fred and Kidd. That bias certainly plays heavily into my enjoyment of this latest entry in Steeplechase’s seemingly bottomless archival series of ad hoc conclaves. On paper, nearly everything about the date suggests a listening experience little removed from earlier volumes. Three sympathetic saxophone stylists join a crackerjack rhythm section of Andy Laverne, Jay Anderson and Adam Nussbaum on a program of standards and originals engineered expressly for blowing. The Norman Granz custom of a ballad medley highlighting each horn in isolation is also boilerplate for this sort of format. Even with a subscription to these predictable tropes, several things pleasantly set the disc apart from its brethren.

First, there’s the uncommonly apposite assemblage of horns. A trio of lesser players would tend to coast or get muddled in the homogeneity of their instrumentation. Not so with Oatts, Drewes and Weiskopf. Each man draws a refreshingly personal sound from his sax that makes the customary schematic of solos on the tray card largely superfluous. Contrary to probable conjecture, the patron saint of the day isn’t Coltrane. Instead, it’s the spirits of Lester Young and to an even larger degree, Don Byas that preside over the proceedings. On the ballad feature “I Should Care,” Oatts softens his tone, lending a lilting pillowy texture to his inflections and almost sounding like he’s playing an alto. Weiskopf is similarly lissome in his delivery on “The Things We Did Last Summer.” Drewes rounds out the medley with a dusky rendition of “Angel Eyes,” Websterian purrs threading through his fluttering melody-ripe phrases.

The other prominent difference lies in the horns decision to bolster their excursions with thoughtful, and even at times intricate, arrangements that regularly engage the rhythm section rather than sticking to the orthodoxy of revolving autonomous solos. “Have You Met Miss Jones” alights on some airy exchanges at start and close while Laverne’s modal “Elusive and Reclusive” makes use of warmly textured unison segments that further uncover the saxophonist’s canny rapport. Oatts’ “A Galant [sic] Farewell” sounds uncannily like an outtake from Herbie Hancock’s Speak Like a Child, only with reeds in place of wind and brass tracing gauzy harmonies against the canvas of Laverne’s lucent comping and Nussbaum’s gentle brushwork. The palpitating whisks carry over to Laverne’s “I Love Lucidity” and another string of romance-inflected solos including Anderson’s lone spotlight. The closer “You and the Night and the Music” presents the only place where the horns falter on a head, but the tune quickly rights on the strength of Drewes’ ductile improvisation and an ensuing chase section that sprints to a three-part polyphonic finish. With seventeen predecessors in line behind it, this disc needs some heavy artillery to separate it from the pack. Mssrs. Oatts, Drewes and Weiskopf provide just such a cannonade of creativity without surrendering an iota of symmetry or elegance.

[Steeplechase titles are available direct through: stateside AT prodigy.net]
~ Derek Taylor