Lost Cool Jazz classic
rash67 | USA | 12/02/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"A uniformly pleasant Cool jazz classic from players mostly unknown today. Well, not Art Pepper, who shows up here and there. Bill Perkins and Ritchie Kamuca were contemporaries of Stan Getz on the West Coast, that laid back West Coast Sound. They played in the Stan kenton Band. Getz became, after Miles Davis, the best selling Jazz artist of all time and these guys were forgotten.
Kamuca and Perkins improvize, play off and against each other, always melodic. Two tenors with alto and clarinet, too, in places. Imagine two sax men with very Getz-like tones playing duets with each other, and a rhythm section. This lost album deserves to be much better known.
Check out the sample for "I Want a Little Girl" & "Blues for Two".
Kamuca died young of cancer, I believe. Shy Bill Perkins quit performing, mostly, and became an engineer most of his life and died of the same disease much later in life. Neither recorded or achieved the fame of Getz, despite beautiful technique."
They make it swing, and make it sound easy
James A. Vedda | Alexandria, VA USA | 09/23/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you thrive on a healthy diet of 1950s jazz played by a matched pair of talented saxophonists, this collection will be a swinging slice of heaven. The CD includes two full albums with Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca on tenor saxes, three tracks of Perkins with alto man Art Pepper, and one track of Perkins alone. Totaling over 79 minutes of music, the disc features straight-ahead swing and sweet ballads. Even on the up-tempo tunes, the players sound relaxed as the melodic ideas keep flowing.
All of the tracks were recorded in 1956, as Perkins was emerging as a solo artist after years of working as a sideman with bands such as Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, and Shorty Rogers. Demonstrating his versatility, Perkins switches to bass clarinet on two tracks and flute on one. The sound of the bass clarinet may catch listeners by surprise at first, but after hearing it on these tunes, one may begin to think that the instrument has been seriously underutilized in jazz.
If you have playlists that call for energetic feel-good jazz or mellow tunes for romantic background music, you'll find some of both here. The insert booklet has several pages of good info drawn from the original liner notes plus material added for this release. Overall, a nice package with plenty of enjoyable listening."
Track Listings (17) - Disc #1