This collaboration album are from recording sessions with tenor saxophonist J.R. Monterose and a number of superstars. Just take a look at the the names listed on the album cover. Not to mention, it contains 19 songs and everyone of them is a gem! J.R. Monterose was a top notch Jazz musician who was rated right there with all the greats but decided to go incognito and away from all the major Jazz clubs. They are short songs and not one of them surpasses 5 minutes. Straight ahead Hard Bop for the Jazz Con Class Radio listeners to enjoy, the name of this album is “Jaywalkin.” This album feature will not contain all 19 songs but I will choose a good 45 minutes worth and they will be random. Check the schedule link for play times, enjoy!
About the album:
This is an illuminating series of three different sessions from the mid-’50s, where J.R. Monterose surrounds himself with crack players: Charles Mingus, Doug Watkins, Kenny Clarke, Jo Jones, Teddy Charles, Eddie Costa, Joe Puma, Ralph Sharon, and others. The sets are all groovin’-high treatments of everything from hard bop tunes of the era to an set of mostly Rodgers & Hart tunes completely turned upside down lyrically, harmonically, and rhythmically. Mingus, Clarke, Puma, Charles, and Sharon were the band for these cuts. While it begins with a Sharon original, it quickly moves into something wholly different. Mingus is waxing elegant here, invoking the Duke Ellington dictum of transforming everything into something else that’s newer and brighter. On “Have You Met Miss Jones,” Monterose gives the bassist the nod and he strolls out the melody, accenting it differently on every fourth beat; the saxophonist fills the middles with ostinato and Charles dances around the perimeter of Sharon and Clarke. On Gershwin’s “Love Walked In,” Sharon and Charles lead the front line, sweeping through the changes at a brisk but not bop pace for the entire melody before Charles solos his ass off on the chorus……Read More
