Here’s a great example of Jazz musicians collaborating and experimenting different combinations of instruments. This time you have two trumpet players and two alto saxophone players paired up and why the album was named “Pairing Off.” It was recorded in 1956 and will be featured here and exclusively for the Jazz Con Class listeners. Check the schedule link for play times.
About the album:
Pairing Off album by Phil Woods Septet was released Jul 01, 1991 on the Fantasy label. Digitally remastered by Phil De Lancie (1991, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley). Pairing Off songs The title of this excellent CD reissue comes from the fact that the featured septet consists of two altos (Phil Woods and Gene Quill) and two trumpets (Donald Byrd and Kenny Dorham) in addition to a rhythm section (pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Philly Joe Jones). Pairing Off album Of the pairings, Woods and Dorham were more distinctive in 1956, but both Quill and Byrd get in some good licks. Pairing Off CD music The full group stretches out on four ……Read More
Tommy Flanagan Biography:
Between 1975 and 1993, pianist Tommy Flanagan recorded six tribute albums featuring, in turn, the music of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn, Bud Powell, Harold Arlen, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Thad Jones. These albums—it seems a stretch to call them a series—were recorded for four different labels, with only two of them recorded back-to-back, and an eleven-year gap between the last two. They were neither the first nor last of Flanagan’s tribute albums: early in his career, he had recorded an album of Richard Rodgers songs from “The King And I” under the leadership of trumpeter Wilbur Harden, and an album of Leonard Bernstein music under his own name; immediately after the Thad Jones album, he recorded a tribute to his former musical collaborator, Ella Fitzgerald. Yet, the tributes discussed here are linked by their focus on compositions, and by their appearance during a very productive part of the pianist’s career. For all but one of these tribute albums, Flanagan used a traditional piano trio (the exception was the Bud Powell tribute, which had only piano and bass). While Flanagan’s bassists remained fairly steady, each of the five trio albums had a different drummer, and the style of the percussionists helped to define each album.
Since 1956, when he moved from Detroit to New York, Flanagan was a fixture on the recording scene. Fellow Detroiters Kenny Burrell and Thad Jones were the first to include Flanagan in their rhythm sections, and only four days after his New York recording debut, he recorded with Miles Davis. By the end of the year, Flanagan had participated in 17 recording sessions, which yielded classic albums like Davis’ “Collector’s Items”, “The Oscar Pettiford Orchestra in Hi-Fi” and Sonny Rollins’ “Saxophone Colossus”. He was a member of J.J. Johnson’s band until mid-1958, and in May 1959, he played on John Coltrane’s masterpiece, “Giant Steps”. Flanagan recorded two albums under his own name between 1957 and 1960, and co-led “The Cats” with Coltrane and Burrell in 1957. After working with Coleman Hawkins, and recording with a wide range of jazz giants between 1960 and 1963, Flanagan became Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist and he would tour with her until the late 1970s.
When Flanagan recorded “The Tokyo Recital” in February 1975, it was the first album issued under his own name in 15 years. Despite the title, the album was recorded in the studio, not in a concert setting. The album was conceived by producer Norman Granz as a tribute to Strayhorn, and seven of the nine songs were composed (or co-composed) by him…..Learn More
