Joe Newman & Cootie Williams - Jazz at Midnight (Gitanes)

Cut-out bins can often be a music maven’s most efficacious supply chain. I discovered this unassuming slim-line two-fer on an afternoon jaunt to a local brick and mortar yesterday. The quirky coupling of Cootie Williams with organ first piqued my eye, but the presence of a Joe Newman 10” as opener wasn’t a bad bargain either. The Newman cuts find the Basie brass staple fronting what appears to be a pick-up septet in at a Parisian club. Frank Wess, another longtime member of the Count’s coterie, is the only other name I recognize in the ensemble the players make for a relatively tight unit roving through two long jams (the first book-ended by crackling solos by the leader) and a comparatively budget rendering of “Loverman,” where Wess lets his lust-light shine. Always nice to have a baritone saxophonist in a swing band’s ranks and Henry Cocker’s heavy horn adds a welcome gruff patina to the charts and in solo. Newman sounds a shade rangy in spots but the crew pours a lot of gusto into the date and keeps the swing meter needle tilted to the red. Concert fidelity is of its era, but the rhythm section gets a surprisingly fair shake in the mix. The Williams cuts are both curiosity and revelation. Cootie was an icon in twilight, the laurels of his Ellington years somewhat threadbare after a detour into commercial R&B and still years away from his belated reunion with the Duke. The chosen fare isn’t exactly fraught with risk. “Night Train” and “Mood Indigo” make predictable appearances, the latter achieving an ambience akin to if it had been lifted from an old Victrola. But Williams’ officiates the pick-up band of tenor, organ, guitar and drums, which sounds more like an early rock combo with its hot skittle grease organ ladled with plenty of shimmering Sun-Ra style distortion, hard chugging blues guitar and foursquare traps beats, with comfortable aplomb. Downright weird to hear his Armstrong-reminiscent bugle patterns fastened to such a chassis. All but the straight up juke joint blues sign-off “Three O’Clock in the Morning” (a reference to the music’s birthing hour?), which openly flouts the disc's title, allow room for lengthy solos. The group demonstrates their mettle at playing soft and syrupy too on "Lil' Darling." There’s a pleasing piebald texture to these cuts that rubs me right. All in all a stone cold steal for the five-spot shelled out.