Sam Noto - Act One

Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected, all rights reserved.

Another reposting by way of remembering San Noto who passed away on October 16, 2026.

“Like most instrumentalists who also compose, Noto reveals in his written lines a flow akin to his trumpet emanations.”

- Ira Gitler

From 1975 - 1980, the brilliant Jazz trumpet player, Sam Noto, made four LPs for Don Schlitten’s Xanadu record label none of which have made it into broader, digital circulation.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it would be fun to highlight Sam and his Xanadu recordings in four, separate postings before combining these into one, comprehensive feature about Sam and the other recordings he played on for Xanadu as a sideman during this period, most notably on one in which he teamed up with bebop trumpet legend, Red Rodney.

Not only are Jazz fans indebted to Don for recording Sam at the peak of his career but also for turning to four knowledgeable Jazz authors to prepare the liner notes to these LPs each of which provide a wealth of information about Sam’s background, his style of playing, the musicians on the various dates and the song selections.

Recorded on December 1,1975, Sam Noto/Act One [Xanadu 127] features Sam along with Joe Romano, tenor sax, Barry Harris on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Billy Higgins on drums with the following liner notes by Ira Gitler.

“After a series of "Now, coach?" frustrations Sam Noto's virtuoso brilliance was finally revealed beyond the circle of his musical associates by a recording he made in trumpet tandem with Red Rodney during 1974 [Red Rodney Plays Superbop with Sam Noto [Muse 5046]. When the producer of that date, Don Schlitten, formed Xanadu Records, he helped bring Noto's talent more clearly into focus with Sam's debut as a recording leader. Entrance! [Xanadu 103) is a quartet date in which his is the sole horn, spotlighted against vivid backdrop of Barry Harris, Leroy Vinnegar and Lenny McBrowne. The locale of this recording session was Los Angeles because, at the time, Noto was still living and working in Las Vegas.

In Act One the action shifts to New York, Sam having moved to Toronto, and the cast of characters is altered in several instances. Harris remains on stage but this time he is joined by the solid, sensitive duo of [bassist] Sam Jones and [drummer] Billy Higgins. At the  center of the proscenium with Noto is his compatriot of long standing, [tenor saxophonist] Joe Romano. The last time they had played together was in a Carl Fontana sextet at the Silver Slipper in Vegas, circa '68.

Noto heralded his Entrance! with two of his own originals, the title number and one dedicated to his daughter, Jen-Jen. For Act One it was decided to showcase more of Sam's compositions. Like most instrumentalists who also compose, Noto reveals in his written lines a flow akin to his trumpet emanations. Romano describes them as "intricate" and admits that they're tricky to negotiate. There had been a considerable time lapse since Sam and Joe last blew together, in the mid-60's in Sam's quintet at the Renaissance in Buffalo.

"We never have to talk about the music," says Sam in pointing out the great empathy that has existed between them from the early 50's when Joe (from Rochester) and Sam (from Buffalo) began communicating amidst the then active scene in upstate New York.

Renaissance was Noto's own jazz coffee house and it was thriving — up to a point. Success in the jazz club business is not easily accomplished by purveying capuccino. When Sam applied for a wine and beer license, he was refused due to Renaissance's geographical proximity to a YMCA. This turn of events forced him to give up the club and set out for Las Vegas and a steady paycheck.

If you've read Mark Gardner's fine liner notes for Entrance! you know that Sam finally had to split from the "Strip" in 1975. In Toronto he is enjoying a chance for self-expression with jazz gigs at George's Spaghetti House and Mother Necessity. He has also had the opportunity to display his solo talents in his native city through appearances at the University of Buffalo and McKinley High School, as well as at clubs such as Mulligan's and Ericson's.

Romano, known for his work with Woody Herman in the '50's and '60's, played with Buddy Rich, off and on, in the 1968-70 period and was featured with the drummer's band in 1972-74. In 1975 he moved to New York where he has worked with Chuck Israels' National Jazz Ensemble and on occasion with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. On his last tour of duty with Rich he was on alto but he is back to his main love, the tenor. He is, in Noto's words, "a natural player."

That coincides with what I hear, sincerity that is evident in every phrase he plays. I don't think Romano could blow a dishonest note if he tried. This love of and for the music comes through unmistakably. Some of us became aware of this when he recorded with Chuck Mangione back in the early 60's on an album called Recuerdo. Charlie Parker and Bud Powell were early inspirations for Joe and, like most tenormen of the period in which he matured, he talks with reverence for Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. On listening you hear that Sonny is his main man, the Rollins of the years before that giant decided he had to promise to be au courant. It is a pure, beautiful, swinging language and Romano speaks it fluently.

Another man whose sincerity, integrity and pursuit of life-pulsing beauty are well-known entities is pianist Barry Harris. Barry has been on so many Xanadu sessions he is beginning to take on the appearance of Kubla Khan's high priest. When Don Schlitten asks him to step in, his musical response is invariably the equivalent of "Khan Dhu." Harris, whose own albums are Plays Tadd Dameron (Xanadu 113) and Live In Tokyo (Xanadu 130), always inspires the hornmen as well as taking care of his solo spots with deceptive ease.

Sam Jones is another Xanadu leader (Cello Again, Xanadu 129) whose bass graces many a date for the company in a supporting role. He is a disciple of Oscar Pettiford and this no nonsense approach to the instrument is one that is strongly appreciated by his fellows.

Billy Higgins and Jones most often are part of the Cedar Walton trio but they are just as much at home with Harris. Together the three supply a flotation-rotation that grooves as it moves on zephyr-like hooves.

Act One, Noto's Latinate adaptation of Well You Needn't (the bridge is different) opens Act One. The party of the first part is Romano who comes out burning from the git-go. Noto is next and, as he is throughout, far more relaxed than usual. The fire is still there, however, but more importantly so is the warmth which so many of the later lineal descendants of Clifford Brown seem to lack, whatever their attributes. But then Sam had the advantage of hearing Diz, Miles and, especially, Fats Navarro before Brownie even got to him. Higgins is buoyant in his exchanges with the horns.

The medley which follows is made up of three great ballads that are not rare enough to be cliches: I Should Care featuring Harris; What Is There to Say by Romano; and You Are Too Beautiful by Noto.

Aries, indicative of the birth sign of both hornmen, has an out-of-tempo intro, reveried by the two rams, that evolves into a restless, modal swinger. Perhaps due to the modal character, traces of Trane and Miles surface here in Romano and Noto, respectively.

A mellow tempo and lovely melodic-harmonic structure mark Upstate Association, Sam evokes Brownie with a gorgeous brass sound and grace-noted accents. Joe lays back and lays on heavy applications of muscular authority and Barry does some controlled stone-skipping on the tops of the cumuli.

Wavelength is a bright treatment of You Stepped Out of a Dream with Romano reading off in anything but a trancelike attitude; Harris working-out in his best chord-devouring manner; and Noto singing through his mouthpiece like a machine gun shooting love bullets. The melodic dancing on the traps is by the delicately powerful Higgins.

Contact may give you That Old Feeling. The feeling it gives me is that of a hip parade band walking it right down Main Street at the point where they're into a second strain, volume down. The horns are lyrical and Barry throws in a Groovin’ High quote to give it the bop of approval. Jones' only solo of the set brings the Pettiford spirit to life.

In a liner note for a Sal Nistico album in the '60's Gene Lees commented on the "gifted group of young musicians to emerge recently from the wilds of upstate New York" and stated: "Trying to figure out why they should have come up in the unpromising vicinity of the Syracuse-Rochester area and all be Italian is probably as futile as trying to learn why a weirdly large number of the world's great concert violinists are not only Jewish, but members of Russian Jewish families from Odessa!"

To Syracuse and Rochester could be added Buffalo, Utica and Troy. The Italian delegation includes J.R. Monterose, Sal Nistico, Gus Mancuso, Sal Amico, Chuck and Gap Mangione, Don Menza, Nick Brignola and, of course, that potent upstate association of Noto and Romano,

This is Noto's Act One in six scenes. Let the play begin.”

Notes: IRA GITLER

Cover Photo: DON SCHLITTEN

Recording: PAUL GOODMAN

Produced & Directed by DON SCHLITTEN

Sam Noto - Entrance!

© Introduction. Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected, all rights reserved.

Sam passed away on October 16, 2026 at the age of 96 and I am re-posting this feature as a memoriam.

From 1975 - 1980, the brilliant Jazz trumpet player, Sam Noto, made four LPs for Don Schlitten’s Xanadu record label none of which, to my knowledge, have made it into broader, digital circulation.

Not only are Jazz fans indebted to Don for recording Sam at the peak of his career but also for turning to four knowledgeable Jazz authors to prepare the liner notes to these LPs each of which provide a wealth of information about Sam’s background, his style of playing, the musicians on the various dates and the song selections.

Recorded on March 2, 1975, Sam Noto/Entrance! [Xanadu 103] features Sam along with Barry Harris on piano, Leroy Vinnegar on bass and Lenny McBrowne on drums with the following liner notes by Mark Gardner.

Trumpeter Sam Noto has been waiting in the wings a long time to make this solo Entrance! He recorded this album, the first under his own leadership, six weeks before his forty-fifth birthday Yet his career as a professional musician began as long ago as 1947 when Sam quit high school to go on the road with the first of many big bands whose trumpet sections were graced by the Noto horn. His initial emergence as a more-than-promising soloist happened when he was with Stan Kenton in the 1950s, but he wasn't properly featured on LP until 1974 and thereby hangs a story.

In 1969 producer Don Schlitten and writer Ira Gitler were visiting Red Rodney in Las Vegas. Red. always quick to extol the virtues of gifted players, pulled the visitors coattails to Sam Noto They had to hear him and Don must record him, urged the enthusiastic Rodney. Don listened was gassed and later in the year booked Sam for a session in New York with saxophonist Sonny Cnss. Unfortunately, the date fell through.

Then in 1974, Schlitten was in Hollywood to produce recordings for another label. The idea for one of the dates was to pair both the trumpets of Rodney and Noto. At last Sam was heard for the beautiful player he is. You don't hear too many trumpeters now with a pure lineage that encapsulates the spirit and feeling of Dizzy, Fats, Brownie and early Miles. Here he was —a superb soloist and fully-fledged master who had been buried in the blaring, brassy showbiz musical jungle of Las Vegas for far too long.

And now we are getting undiluted Noto with a hand-picked rhythm section For when Don Schlitten founded his own Xanadu label Sam Noto was on his top priority list for recording. Hence Barry Harris and Don taking wings to Los Angeles earlier this year to give Sam the proper showcase that has been denied him for so long. Noto is a giant —that much will hit you as soon as he hits Fats Flats. The faith of Schlitten and Rodney is amply justified on these sides

Everyone likes to be right occasionally, and in the case of Sam Noto this writer must proclaim,  “I told you so.'" Reviewing a 1957 Stan Kenton album for Jazz Journal way bark in April 1961, I opined Sam Noto takes admirable warm solos on With The Wind, They Didn't Believe Me and I See Your Face Before Me. He is a musician deserving of a wider exposure. Give this a listen, by all means - if only for Sam Noto.

I didn’t get to hear Sam again until he surfaced with the Count Basie Orchestra for a brief -period during 1964/65. His occasional solo in that context emphasized his continual development but it was crumbs from the table for those even vaguely aware of Sam’s potential.

Sam Noto was born in Buffalo, New York, on April 17, 193O which made him more than a contemporary ot Clifford Brown. Only six months separated the two men.  He studied trumpet in grammar school but he says, “I don't have much of a background in straight music Most of what I learned was through self-tuition and experience on the road. "

A couple of school buddies turned him onto jazz when he-was 16. At that point in time just after World War II, jazz was bursting out of its earlier forms and bebop was already in full flower. Sam was listening hard. “The first trumpet player to move me was Dizzy and then Fats.  After them, Miles they were the first influences along with Bird. Of course Charlie Parker was probably the most important musical inspiration to me. Later it was Brownie, Coltrane and Rollins. Those are players I listened to the most.”

As a teenager he quit school and shuffled off from Buffalo on the road with some band or other for the next six years.  He worked with Louie Bellson for a time but 1953 found him gigging around Buffalo again He was in the right place at the right time as things worked out.

"I went with Kenton as a result of an accident The band bus had a very bad crash on the way to Buffalo. When the band got to Buffalo it was short of men because a number had been hurt in the accident. So I was called to play Thein the band for that night’s engagement.  I stayed with the band until 1960.” The years with Kenton made Sam a power player of stamina. He crossed America many times and toured Europe as well. Although he was often given solo spots in the arrangements it was not exactly a satisfactory framework for such a talent.

But as Jazz  entered into a lean period in the 1960s, Sam, after a hitch with Basie was forced to seek employment in Las Vegas where no matter how crummy the music, an instrumentalist of his ability could and can earn a comfortable living. Such an environment, though, erodes one's patience. In a word it is frustrating. As 1974, closed Sam made a resolution that this year he would get out: “I left Vegas because it is a musical graveyard. All show and no music It was driving me mad,” Noto summarises succinctly.

He has chosen Toronto, Canada, as his new base of operations. "I plan to stay here in Toronto and try to work playing Jazz even it I have to travel to do it.” I always wanted my own group — had one for a spell with Joe Romano on tenor around 1965 - and to play Jazz.  As for Canada being permanent, as long as I can work and support my family I'll stay.”

Sam enjoyed making this session. “I found it very challenging me to do an album with no other horn, but I dug it. Playing with another horn can change or alter your playing. Sometimes, for the worst yet sometimes for the better. I really enjoyed Barry Harris I think he was beautiful on the date. " I am pleased that my first album as leader came off as well as it did. For putting together musicians that never played together it was good." You can say that again, Sam, even though you feel it could have been better. Like all true artists, Sam doesn’t even look back at even the most recent achievements. What he will play and create tomorrow is of even more importance.  That spirit ensures there will he more goodies from Sam in the future

Sam tips his cap to Schlitten and Rodney, the men who kept faith with him. Of the former Noto says: “I think Don Schlitten is a very courageous man for keeping his interest and love for the music throughout the bad times jazz has seen in more recent years We need more like him "

Rodney has said of Noto: “We finally got Sam on record and from now on I feel a great new trumpet star will be unveiled.”  For his part, Noto states, “I always thought Red Rodney was one of the best white jazz players." He has a high opinion of Freddie Hubbard but admits “Miles has lost me entirely.”

Looking back Sam feels: "My years with Kenton. Basie and other big bands were a good experience, but hardly the place to play personal music. I didn’t develop my ears and my trumpet playing.” As for the pre Kenton days, “I was travelling with very commercial bands and listening and playing as much jazz as I could.”

Sam's allegiance to the Fats/Brownie school of unadulterated bebop is most apparent on this date.  He evokes Fats on two of that great man's works which Navarro recorded in September 1947. Fats Flats is also known as Barry's Bop (an allusion to critic Ulanov and not pianist Harris), but it is here given the correct title. Nostalgia is Navarro s lovely line on Out Of Nowhere changes.  Lover Man, so emotionally associated with Bird was never recorded by Clifford Brown except in a version with JJ Johnson on which Brownie had only a couple of notes.  Here Noto does it up just as Brownie might have conceived it. I can think of no finer tribute to Sam’s artistry and no better tribute to Brownie on record Sam's two originals. Entrance! and Jen-Jen, both of which belie the composer’s assertion that he does not spend enough time at writing as he should. I do also play flugelhorn and enough piano to write my tunes. But really, I have devoted about all my efforts to trumpet through the years.”

His choice of program is rounded out by the Kern standard Make Believe from Showboat, a tune that inspired the late Kenny Dorham to record a memorable version, and Tchaikovsky’s The Things I Love, a timeless romantic melody.  We quickly recognize that Fats Flats is a fast and happy way of exclaiming What Is This Thing Called Love? Ira Gitler’s description of Sam as “an all around Jazz virtuoso” is well founded in Sam's fluent choruses here. Barry is up there with him and after his excellent solo, trumpet and piano exchange a series of thoughts in eight-bar measures.

The stately Lover Man is accorded a glistening, expressive performance by Sam’s warm and full-bodied trumpet, strong in all registers. Here is style allied to technique that is subservient to the moving emotional content. Barry charts a glowing passage through passionate waters. Sam makes a spectacular re-entry and toys with some interesting, deceptively static ideas before his splendid coda.

Sam's Entrance! is finely-flighted and melodic. a sequence that keeps throwing up challenges for the soloist, and that is what Noto and Harris. Leroy Vinnegar pulsates and Lenny McBrowne keeps it cooking in the eights. This Entrance! is so good that you are into the foyer before you barely realize it.

Etching Make Believe with precision, Sam allocates the first solo to Barry for a change of pace and Mr Harris conjures some lissome, logical ideas from the keyboard. Sam weaves in and out of the line with an agility that makes me believe he is espousing  a message that few others can convey today. They have either forgotten how or find it too demanding. Noto is a natural player whose ideas flow and resolve, but that level of craftsmanship is not gained easily. It is the result of nearly 30 years familiarity with valves, mouthpieces, fingering, air pressures, the mastery of metal by mouth and digits.

Nostalgia is not at all what that word implies, unless you interpret it as a return to true musical values In any event Sam makes something entirely new of the old and esteemed piece of material, tried but infrequently tested since Fats made it in 1947, with the notable exception of an interpretation by saxophonist Charles McPherson (on a Don Schlitten produced date, right!). Noto alters the routine by playing the first chorus sans piano, although Barry takes a break on the opening theme. Sam's solo is a gem of constructive perfection. It builds in inevitable fashion, just as Navarro's lustrous statements did. Barry is again an enhancer and extender of the mood. Leroy walks one with Harris providing the punctuation marks. The word nostalgia has become corrupted and abused. It is now used disparagingly and carries with it the taint of a sneer. Nostalgia, as played by Sam Noto. will make you want to return to it often, not to feel nostalgic but to taste again the thrill of elation.

(These Are) The Things I Love is a classic pop or a pop classic, now accorded an unmistakable jazz slant. The melody is strong and the piece trickles gently, never rushes. Sam and Barry are gentle but not cloying. Noto inserts some wringing runs into the fabric of the strain - wonderful.

Jen-Jen is bouncy and full of fizz.  It's a sound portrait of and dedication lo Sam's two-year-old daughter   "Jen-Jen is her name and she's a real beaut I might add," Sam observes. To which I can only add that he has captured his little girl's captivating qualities in this piece.   And talking of "beauts," the solos of Sam and Barry are certainly in that category A lovely way lo exit from Entrance! and return pronto to Fats Flats for another journey through the imaginative and spellbinding musical world of Sam Nolo, a trumpet star unveiled. He's out of the wings and right in the spotlight where he belongs and the wings are on his mercurial trumpet.   At 45 Sam has well and truly arrived.”

Notes: Mark Gardner

Recording: Peter Granet

Mixing: Paul Goodman

Produced and Directed by Don Schlitten

Ronnie Cuber - The Early Years

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Sixty Years after he made his first appearance on the Jazz scene in 1960 with the Newport Jazz Festival Youth Band, Ronnie Cuber is still going strong, most recently, as a recording artist for Nils Winthur’s Steeplechase label and in numerous club and concert dates both at home and abroad.

The man is a Force of Nature!

Ronnie has been such a fixture for so long that it's hard to remember where it all began for him as a recording artist under his own name.

The earliest recording by Ronnie as a leader in my collection is Cuber Libre which was recorded on August 20, 1976 on Don Schlitten’s Xanadu label [Xanadu 175]. 

Thank goodness for Don Schiltten as during the vast wasteland that was recorded Jazz in the 1970s and 80s, Xanadu produced over 100 LPs by such established mainstream artists as Red Rodney, Barry Harris, and Tal Farlow, among many others. The label also gave a start to artists who had been around a while but had not recorded their own albums like trumpeter Sam Noto [whose work on Xanadu was covered earlier on these pages], guitarist Ted Dunbar, and Ronnie Cuber.

As was the case earlier with Bob Weinstock at Prestige Records, the Jazz author and critic Ira Gitler became a sort of aide de camp to Don at Xanadu and helped with production and marketing duties including writing many of the liner notes.

Here’s what he had to say about Ronnie on Cuber Libre which provides an overview of the early years of Ronnie’s career as well as some keen observations about the music and the musicians on the recording.

“In 1960, while a member of down beat's record reviewing staff, I had occasion to write about Marshal! Brown's Newport Youth Band Recorded Live at the Newport Jazz Festival. I liked the band — with reservations. Various soloists were singled out for praise. One in particular was Ronnie Cuber. "Cuber's baritone solo will gas you," I wrote in the vernacular of the time. "His 'break' on Tiny’s Blues at the beginning of the solo shows a wonderful sense of time."

The ability to swing with the rhythm suspended has always been an informal, unofficial, yet revealing test for jazzmen and to hear it done so well by one so young made me mark Ronnie Cuber in my mind as a "File For the Future," as in the feature of the same title used to herald bright, up and coming musicians in the pages of Metronome years ago.

That future is now, which is not to say that Ronnie has not been an excellent, ever-deepening player from the time of Tiny’s Blues, nor that he hasn't been featured as a soloist in a variety of contexts, but that this is the first opportunity he has had to step into the spotlight as a recording leader. This did not happen overnight anymore than did his development. Don Schlitten had admired his work for a long while and when he formed Xanadu it was just a matter of finding the right time to record him.

Ronald Edward Cuber was a Christmas present to his parents in 1941, 18 days after Pearl Harbor. His father played accordion; his mother piano. In this musical atmosphere Ronnie began studying clarinet at age nine. At Alexander Hamilton High School, in his native Brooklyn, N.Y., he played tenor sax, the instrument on which he auditioned for the Newport Youth Band. There were just so many chairs to be filled and an abundance of tenor players but no baritone saxophonists. Marshall Brown obviously heard something in Cuber because he offered to buy him a bari if he would agree to anchor the reeds.

"Over the years it got to be my horn," says Ronnie whose first idol was Stan Getz. When he bought a Gerry Mulligan sextet record it was more for Zoot Sims than the leader. At 16 friends took him to the Cafe Bohemia to hear Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. "When Sonny came up to the mike to play, that was it," he reminisces.

There were other tenor influences, too, after he was full into baritone. He liked Hank Mobley and tried to simulate some of that sound on the baritone. He also had begun listening to Pepper Adams at the time he joined the Newport Band in 1959. Adams was the new baritone man on the scene at the time and Ronnie's cohorts urged him to try to get a sound like Pepper — "more edge."

Other influences, according to Cuber, were Cecil Payne, John Coltrane and Harold Land. There Are certain places in this album when Ronnie reminds one of the late Leo Parker. Had he heard Leo? "Not very much," he replied, "but Don Schlitten played a track for me recently and it flipped me out.

"I listened occasionally to Serge Chaloff," he continued. "His dynamics were something. I heard Cecil Payne with Randy Weston and that made me go back and play his older records with Dizzy. They were tremendously spirited with a big, fat sound."

Ronnie also paid close attention to altoists, trumpeters and pianists. "In the '50s I listened a lot to Horace Silver and his type of sound. I always wanted to have or be part of a group like that."

The Newport Youth Band was a valuable learning experience for Cuber, and among the benefits derived from playing in an orchestra is the acquisition of a personal sound and a sense of shading and phrasing. Ronnie continued to develop these with Maynard Ferguson (1963-65), Lionel Hampton (1968) and Woody Herman (1969) with whom he toured Europe. He also did a couple of weeks with Kai Winding's four trombone unit except with Ronnie it was only three trombones. He played the bass trombone parts on baritone. There was much jamming in a downtown Manhattan loft with tenorman Joe Farrell, pianist Gil Coggins, bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Vinnie Ruggerio. He was around Slide Hampton's little band and, as a result, did some playing with it and its baritone saxophonist, Jay Cameron.

Although Cuber had some exposure in all these situations the jazz public really became aware of him in the George Benson quartet in 1966-67. He recorded four albums with the guitarist and received more stretching room. "We got a hard-hitting rhythm and blues feel," he explains. "Since it was an every night thing I did most of my playing on that band." It was in 1966 that he won the down beat International Critics' Poll as baritone sax deserving of wider recognition. Check out The George Benson Cookbook on Columbia.

In 1970-71 Cuber played with a jazz-rock mixture band called White Elephant and in 1972 was with King Curtis. This group evolved into Aretha Franklin's backup band. Then he jumped into another kind of experience with Eddie Palmieri from 1972, following up in the Latin-jazz vein with Bobby Paunetto in 1975.

It was also in 1972 that he studied flute with Danny Bank. This new instrument and his doubling bass clarinet has helped him to do studio work during the 70s, no small aid toward helping a serious jazzman survive. Ronnie is not afraid of being harmed by versatility. "I feel I can play disco just as well as play '50s, '60s or '70s jazz," he says.

This album is strictly for blowing, however, and it properly shows off Cuber's command of the big horn's many aspects from steam rolling forward motion to tender, throaty love calls. The supporting trio is most sympathetic.

Albert "Tootie" Heath, youngest of the illustrious Heath brothers, spends his time between the U.S. and Scandinavia. He is a young drum master capable of functioning at top level in a variety of settings. As Dexter Gordon once put it: "Tootie is very loose. You can play anything with him."

Mention Sam Jones’ name to any of the multi-factioned, hypercritical New York players and you will receive nothing but positive feedback from all quarters. The unflagging time and the quality of each note have marked him as just about everyone's favorite bassist in the Apple.

Anyone who has heard Barry Harris knows the kind of magic he can weave as leader or sideman. In the latter role he is unusually empathic and supportive. He and Cuber had never played together before but Ronnie felt "a lot of rapport with Barry. It went naturally that way."

From his very first notes on Star Eyes, the Don Raye-Gene De Paul song Charlie Parker helped immortalize, it's obvious that Ronnie's sound has that "edge" and a most attractive one it is, cutting benignly through the lovely melody and harmonies. Everyone in the group gets a chance to work out.

Cuber unleashes his tidal swing on Rifftide, the Coleman Hawkins line on Lady Be Good which Hawk first revealed as the out chorus of the Gershwin evergreen in an Asch recording with Mary Lou Williams. Ronnie's tone and intensity on this one was what prompted me to ask him if he had ever listened to Leo Parker.

Tin Tin Deo dates originally from a 1948 recording by James Moody, Ernie Henry, Cecil Payne, Dave Burns and Chano Pozo, all members of the Dizzy Gillespie band at the time. The pretty, mysterioso Latin opus is a collaboration between congero Pozo and Gillespie's chief arranger of the period, Gil Fuller. Ronnie uses a growl effectively in the theme statement and goes to create and sustain a completely effective mood.

Luiz Bonfa's Samba D'Orfeo puts him in another kind of Latin groove which metamorphoses into straight-ahead North American swing after the theme. Barry, with Tootie's help, mixes his idioms to advantage.

The ballad of the date, Erroll Garner's classic Misty, is treated languorously and lovingly before it is swung and bluesed but never bruised by the benevolent bludgeon of a baritone. Ronnie's is a mailed fist in a velvet glove.

Sudwest Funk is a down blues by Donald Byrd, first recorded by the composer in 1959 with Pepper Adams and Jackie McLean. Harris opens with some vintage bebop blues, setting the stage for an impassioned statement by Cuber that flows naturally back into the funky Sudwest.

Back in 1949 Kenny Dorham and Max Roach combined to conceive Prince Albert, a lovely, intricate line on the chords of All the Things You Are. Later, in the '50s, Art Blakey's Messengers used to play it when Dorham was a member of that quintet. It is still a very valid vehicle for improvisation as Cuber and Harris so ably demonstrate. Ronnie's out chorus utilizes All the Things You Are as well as Prince Albert.

Ronnie has put in a lot of hard work on his natural talent in the more than fifteen years since he zoomingly rumbled through that break on Tilly's Blues. Cuber Libre is Cuber free—free to pursue his natural inclinations to honest, hard-driving, beautiful music. Cuber Libre is the gateway. The door is open.”

Notes: IRA GITLER

Cover Photo: DON SCHLITTEN

Recording: PAUL GOODMAN

Produced & Directed by DON SCHLITTEN