Barry Harris - Luminescence! - A JazzProfiles Snapshot

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Drummer Roy Brooks, in talking of Barry Harris in a recent Down Beat article (8/10/67), described the pianist as "an excellent musician, teacher and philosopher. He's one of the few musicians who has really captured the essence of Bird's message— not only the rhythmic quality but the expression."

Brooks is not the only musician to speak of Harris this way. All the Detroiters, like Brooks, who learned from Barry as they were coming up in the jazz world, echo this in one way or another. The New Yorkers who have become aware of his great knowledge and musicianship have added their praise.”

- Ira Gitler, insert notes to Barry Harris - Luminescence! [Prestige OJCCD - 924-2]

“Luminescence” means the emission of light and that’s what pianist Barry Harris [b. 1929] has been doing throughout his career - throwing light on how to play the music of bebop.

One of the Detroit school of pianists which include Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, Harris subsequently arrived in New York in the late 1950s and has remained there ever since. He was the preferred accompanist of both Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Stitt. I first heard him during his stint as a member of Julian “Cannonball” Adderley’s quintet.

Barry Harris’s approach to bebop is similar to both Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, but his style is characterized by what some have termed more “gentler persuasions:” unfussy, unpretentious, but carried off with a distilled intensity that keeps the attention of the listener.

Over the years, Barry has become revered as one of the great teachers in the music; shedding light on the mysteries of bebop to the generations of musicians who did not have the opportunity to experience the music firsthand.

“The career of Barry Harris suggests a self-effacing man for, although he is among the most accomplished and authentic of second-generation bebop pianists, his name has never excited much more than quiet respect among followers of the music. Musicians and students hold him in higher esteem.

His records are perhaps unjustly little known. There is no singleton masterpiece among them, just a sequence of graceful, satisfying sessions which suggest that Harris has been less interested in posterity via recordings and more in what he can give to jazz by example and study. Nevertheless, he cut several records for Prestige and Riverside in the 1960s, and most are still available as CD’s.” [Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD].

My favorite is Luminescence! [Prestige OJCCD - 924-2] on which Harris brings together a fine group that includes Slide Hampton on trombone, Junior Cook on tenor saxophone, Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Lenny McBrowne on drums. Adams, Cook and Hampton solo with a taut assertiveness that makes a 1967 bebop date seem entirely relevant, despite its time and place.

See what you think as Barry’s sextet works out on Bud Powell’s Webb City on the following video.

Sonny Stitt - A JazzProfiles Snapshot

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"I'm no new Bird, man!...Nobody's Bird. Bird died."

So Sonny Stitt, without a doubt one of the finest jazz saxophonists, told writer Dave Bittan in a 1959 Down Beat feature, responding to a remark about how his music was so much like Charlie Parker's.

- Zan Stewart, insert notes to The Complete Roost Sonny Stitt Studios Sessions [Mosaic Records MD9-208]

“One of the most recorded musicians of all time—as a leader, not a sideman—Sonny Stitt sometimes seemed indifferent to the music he was playing. Not that he was likely to disappoint his audience, who, he knew, couldn't detect for the most part when he was on and when he was coasting; after all, he could coast with head-spinning virtuosity. But there was a touch of cynicism. A record session, finally, was just another gig — a fast taste, no royalties. The blues, "I Got Rhythm," a couple of standards. Still, he countered that cynicism with the conviction, shared by numberless jazz musicians about their own work, that the knowing audience, however small, would recognize the diamonds, would distinguish what was great from what was merely professional. …

His best work, those diamonds, will live as long as anything in Jazz.”

- Gary Giddins, Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation

“Today it takes something out of the ordinary to inspire Stitt to his full powers.”

- Ira Gitler, Jazz author and critic [writing in 1966]

Writing in Sonny Stitt: Endgame Brilliance - Tune-Up! - Constellation [32jazz 32009] producer Joel Dorn commented:

“Tune-Up! and Constellation are among the best records Sonny Stitt ever made and, without question, are the two finest examples of his late period work. Aside from their inherent musical brilliance, they go a long way to show just why Stitt was so respected by his peers and revered as one of the giants of modern jazz. Both records were originally released on the now defunct Muse label. Even though Constellation was nominated for a Grammy, and Tune-Up! was as critically acclaimed, both records have been relatively hard to find. Now they're both on one disk.

This is the first "two-far" on 32 Jazz. Our goal is to give you as much attractively-packaged, great music for the dollar as is humanly possible. I hope you enjoy our initial offering 'cause we got nothing but great music coming your way.”

Gary Giddins, another close and astute observer of the Jazz scene heartily agreed with Joel when he wrote:

“... 10 years ago [1972], in the midst of a relentless and largely undistinguished recording regimen including tenor-organ dates and a brief flirtation with electronic sax, Stitt made a superb album called Tune Up! for Cobblestone. There isn't a rote note on it. One reason for its success was producer Don Schlitten, who has a magical touch with bop saxophonists, and another was pianist Barry Harris, a catalyst for some of Stitt's best playing since 1957 (their 1961 "Koko" for Cadet is one of Stitt's masterpieces). Heady with success, the three returned to the studio four months later to cut Constellation, which is measure for measure probably the best LP Stitt ever made. When it tied McCoy Tyner's Sahara for first place in the Down Beat critics' poll, some colleagues were dismayed that what appeared on the surface to be an ordinary six-hour quartet date, leader plus pick-up rhythm, should win the prize from more fashionable doings. But I continue to think it was one of Down Beat's more privileged moments, recognizing a veteran player's reclaimed inspiration.” [Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation, p. 109].

In closing his insert notes to the original 1972 Muse recording of Tune Up! [MR 5334, the Jazz author and critic said:

“Here endeth Tune-Up! a watershed in Stittology. This is the conclusive proof, if anybody still needs it, that when the spirit moves him, and the company is right, Sonny Stitt is one of the greatest soloists in jazz.”

And Howard Mandel began his insert notes to the 1972 Muse recording of Constellation [MR 5323]by observing:

“When a distant sun dies in our sky, it takes light-years — a measure of space by time — for us to perceive it, and until we do we still see the bright pin point as alive. Thanks to the perspective afforded by recordings, which can telescope jazz history so that eons of music fit on a few feet of shelves, the light of Edward "Sonny" Stitt still burns. Some of his brightest moments are caught and held for all time on the albums he recorded for Muse during the last decade of his life. The reissue of Constellation, originally released on Cobblestone, reminds us of the brilliance Stitt gave off during the final era of his fiery career.”

Experienced and skilled Jazz musicians like Edward “Sonny” Stitt could and did “mail it in” on any number of occasions, after all, it’s difficult to play this music night-after-night at a high level of creative ability.

But when Sonny decided to “deliver the mail” himself, it was always worth opening as it was sure to be a special delivery.

Sonny performs Tadd Dameron’s Casbah from the Constellation LP on the following video with Barry Harris, piano, Sam Jones, bass and Roy Brooks, drums.

The Woody Herman Big New Herd at The 1959 Monterey Jazz Festival - Revised [From the Archives]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Woody Herman must be one of the least disliked persons on earth. It isn't just sentimentality. Herman's name is a quality brand, representing craftsmanship, integrity, and receptiveness to new ideas. So when it was announced that Herman—who has been a traveling performer since the age of eight and a bandleader since 1936—was coming off the road to settle in a room of his own (opening night: December 27, 1981), there was considerable hoopla. It was widely assumed that Herman would be delighted to plant his feet on one patch of earth. But Herman is of another school, almost another world.

In the '30s and '40s, musicians roamed the land in herds. Crisscrossing a grid of interstate highways and backroads, corralled in buses, billeted according to celebrity status and race, and developing a collective, arcane wit to complement the music and to fight fatigue, they moved from town to town, ballroom to ballroom, glad for the occasional two-week stay but always ready to pack up after the gig for another long trip. Swing bands, fifteen to twenty strong on the average, were one of the Depression's more unlikely phenomena. Although many were sickly sweet or bland and derivative, more than a few were hot, impetuous, energetic, inventive, and inspired. These were the bands that combined strong leaders, brilliant soloists, adventurous writers, and the best songs of a golden age of song writing. Individual in their style of presentation as well as in their music, they coexisted in an atmosphere of friendly, if sometimes tension-ridden, competition. The stubbornest road musicians probably got to know America better than any of its other citizens, certainly than any of its other artists. But few were either stubborn or strong enough to survive the social and economic changes that followed World War II. And only two—Count Basie and Woody Herman—were also both gifted and lucky enough to survive into the '80s. They are as obsolete as buffalo, and just as grand.

Woody Herman's, as his new club is called, is located in the Hyatt Regency complex in New Orleans; thirty-six weeks a year, six nights a week, two shows a night, Woody can walk to work. Yet when I visited with him half a year after he was ensconced, he was grazing restlessly. He loves New Orleans and is grateful for the security, but . . . "if I told you I wasn't looking forward to doing dates again on the other weeks, I'd be lying." At sixty-nine, he's not entirely ready for the reservation. Maybe it's something in the blood.

[Sadly, almost a year later in November, 1982, Gary Giddings would observe that]... These are troubled times for Herman. Within one week in November, he lost both the New Orleans nightclub that was meant to be a lifetime respite from roadwork, and, more tragically, his wife of 46 years. “

- Gary Giddins, Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation

I thought adding the above excerpt from Gary Giddins’ Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation - a work that Francis Davis has labeled “an indispensable guidebook” - as an introduction would make for an interesting revision to this earlier piece on Woody Herman and a great reason to repost it.

Can’t think of a better way to spend July 4th than by listening to and talking about Woody Herman’s music.

Writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Barry Kernfeld, ed., Sarah Velez and Paul M. Laird offered this overview of The Monterey Jazz Festival.

“The Monterey Jazz Festival. Festival is held annually from 1958 near Monterey, California. It was founded by Ralph J. Gleason and the disc jockey Jimmy Lyons, partly at the suggestion of George Wein and Louis Lorillard (the founders of the Newport Jazz Festival). Gleason was an adviser to the festival's organizers during its early years and Lyons was its general manager into the 1980s; its music directors have been John Lewis (to 1983) and Mundell Lowe. The festival takes place over three days in September (including the third weekend of the month) at three venues on the Monterey County Fairgrounds (seating 7000) and usually offers performances by well-known swing and bop musicians; Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk appeared regularly, as have Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, and Dave Brubeck. A blues concert has also been included in most years.

Proceeds from the festival have been used for educational purposes, including the awarding of grants and scholarships (from 1961) and the administration of the Annual California High School Jazz Competition (from 1971), the winners of which perform on the last day of the festival with its featured performers. The Monterey Jazz Festival was acclaimed during its early years for its innovative programming; in 1959, for example, it included the premieres of works by Jimmy Giuffre, John Lewis, and Gunther Schuller (all performed by an ensemble directed by Schuller) and performances by an all-star band assembled for the occasion by Woody Herman. Later, however, it drew criticism for its indifference towards free jazz and other modern styles.

The tape archive of the festival is held by the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound at Stanford University.”

The MJF just completed its 57th anniversary and the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be fun to look back at one of the event’s earliest concerts with these insert notes by Ralph Gleason from Woody Herman’s Big New Herd at the 1959 Monterey Jazz Festival [Atlantic LP 1328/Koch CD KOCCD-8508].

“One of the most impressive things about the 1959 Monterey Jazz Festival (which was in itself a pretty impressive affair, as witness the reviews) was the Festival orchestra put together especially to function as a workshop orchestra during the week preceding the Festival and, during the actual three days of the Festival, to double as the Woody Herman Festival Herd and the workshop band (augmented by various soloists and members of the San Francisco Symphony).

It was a long, hard week of work for the musicians. Rehearsals morning, noon and  night; literally. And when the first evening concert -Friday -began with the Chris Barber band and Ottilie Patterson singng the blues, the latecomers walking down to the Festival arena passed by the rehearsal hall and heard the Woody Herman Festival Herd wailing away through the numbers heard on this album. They had volunteered an extra rehearsal “for Woody.”

On Saturday afternoon the Herman band played under the blazing Monterey sun, interrupted occasionally by the roar of a low-flying civilian plane (the Air Force and the Navy gallantly re-routed their fliers but nobody could control the casual civilian). "I'm beginning to hate him," Woody Herman remarked as the particularly annoying small plane flew over for the umpteenth time during fits set.                                                           

Part of the program on Saturday afternoon and again on Saturday evening consisted of a set by the Herman Herd ("I wish I could take this band on the road!"

Part of the program on Saturday afternoon and again on Saturday evening consisted of a set by the Herman Herd (“I wish I could take this band on the road,” Woody said, and everyone agreed it was one of the greatest bands Woody had ever stood before). It was recorded by Atlantic, both afternoon and evening, when the Monterey sun was replaced by the cold, foggy breeze from the Pacific and the spectators, who that afternoon were wearing Bavarian shorts and sunglasses, were wrapped in blankets, ski boots and wool caps.

Saturday night the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross Trio sang out an introduction for the Herman band. Woody turned around to the 19 men and yelled, "BOW! BOW! BOW! BOW!" and they roared into Four Brothers.  It was the classic Herman chart written by Jimmy Giuffre for the legendary Second Herd (the one with Stan and Zoot and Serge and Herbie Steward). It’s been in the books over ten years, played practically every night “The sheets are all dog-eared,” [drummer] Mel Lewis noted. But oddly enough this is only the second time Herman has recorded it.  The solos this time (first time around) are by Zoot Sims, Med Flory (baritone), Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca, Then at the end, it's Perkins, Zoot Richie and Med . They follow the short Woody Herman bit (“After all he is our dad our dad,” Jon Hendricks wrote).

Like Some Blues Man is from the afternoon session. You'll hear Woody’s high-flying friend roaring around upstairs. "He'll be gone in a minute," Woody hopefully remarked. He wasn't Vic Feldman starts this one with a vibes solo, you hear some delightful Conte Candoli trumpet, a Bill Perkins tenor solo, Urbie Green on trombone and Charlie Byrd on guitar (he was one of the hits of the Festival) and at the end the airplane buzzes the band again! The tune was written and arranged by Ted Richards whose work shows unmistakable evidence of his close collaboration in the past with Gene Roland.

Skoobeedoobee (“from the picture 'Sal Mineo in Purgatory.’” Woody introduced it) is also from the afternoon session and has Vic Feldman on piano. Vic almost didn't get to play at all at Monterey, At the opening rehearsal he stepped forward to speak to Woody and slipped and fell off the bandstand and hurt his knee. Not too seriously, luckily. Zoot Sims and Urbie Green - and Woody too - have solo spots and I am particularly fond of the explosions by Mel Lewis at the end. Mel, incidentally, never worked with Woody before “although I always wanted to,” he says. Most of the others had, and Conte Candoli, Urbie, Richie, Zoot, Perk and Med Flory especially were veterans of other Herman bands. Don Lanphere and Bill Chase were from Woody's most recent band. This is another Ted Richards opus.

Monterey Apple Tree got a beautifully "in" introduction by Woody. "If s a very old tune of ours," he said, "and this year we're changing the title because I feel it's only fair to the fellas that are going to play it and also the listeners  - this year we're gonna call it Monterey Apple Tree." Almost everybody gets into the act on this one and towards the end there's a fine exchange of statements between tenor Don Lanphere and baritone Med Rory.

Skylark, an arrangement by Ralph Burns, is a vehicle fertile lyric trombone of Urbie Green and Urbie is also featured on Magpie which closes the LP. This was written by Joseph Mark a cousin of [tenor saxophonist] Al Cohn who contributed so many compositions to tie Herman book over the years.

These were exciting sessions and we're lucky they came out so wall on tape and could be preserved for our enjoyment. Recording outdoors is hazardous, but this LP is one of the more successful of this sort of thing, in my opinion. It's hard to separate the memories and listen objectively to the music in a situation like this,

Monterey 1959 was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life and, it would seem, that of a lot of other people.  Musicians to J.J, Johnson, Mel Lewis and Woody Herman apparently feel the same way (“I’ll be back even if I'm not working on it,” Mel says.)

The reviews were almost unanimous in praise. "This one's for jazz,”' Down Beat's Gene Lees said and added, "Monterey.. .made previous jazz festivals look like grab bags, musical potpourris that do not compare with the smoothly purposeful and thought-provoking Monterey Festival." Annie Ross commented, "It's actually inspiring to get out here and find people working like this.”' After reading off list of things to be corrected next year musical consultant John Lewis said, "It's only the best Festival ever!" Gunther Schuller wrote, “The musicians are both pleased and surprised. They are treated with respect warmth and even reverence.”  All of this colors my listening to this LP, I frankly admit.'

Monterey was a gas for musicians and fans alike. That it was, is a tribute to the planning of Jimmy Lyons, the founder and moving force behind the Festival, and John Lewis who served (without fee, incidentally) as musical consultant.

As for me, I was grateful to them then for the exhilarating program, I'm grateful now that Atlantic has preserved this portion of it for our future pleasure. If it gives you one tenth the pleasure it has already given me, it will be a success.”

The band personnel on Woody Herman’s Big New Herd at the Monterey Jazz festival are -

Woody Herman, clarinet and alto sax

Trumpets: Al Porcino, Conte Candoli, Ray Linn, Frank Huggins and Bill Chase

Trombones: Urbie Green, Sy Zentner and Bill Smiley

Alto Sax: Don Lamphere [who also plays tenor on Monterey Apple Honey]

Tenor saxes: Zoot Sims, Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca

Guitar: Charlie Byrd

Piano and Vibraphone: Victor Feldman

Bass: Monty Budwig

Drums: Mel Lewis

The following video montage of Monterey Jazz festival posters is set to Monterey Apple Honey and the solo order is Zoot Sims, Richie Kamuca, Bill Perkins, Don Lamphere on tenor dueling with Med Flory on baritone sax, Urbie Green, Conte Candoli, Victor Feldman [vibes and Herman. The last bridge is by Don Lamphere and the concluding high notes are by Al Porcino.

I think it would be safe to say that Woody Herman had one of the earliest big bands to play Bebop.

It would also be safe to say that no one ever had a better one.

Frank Strozier - Cloudy, Cool and Concealed

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Frank Strozier is one of the finest saxophone players I've had the pleasure of working with. He is creative. He is an individualist. He has a beautiful melodic sense. He swings hard and besides all this, he is a wonderful composer." 

- Shelly Manne, drummer, bandleader, club owner

“Strozier attacks every solo viciously, like a hungry hound ripping into a piece of raw meat. He can grab a line and strangle it in a profusion of notes, then, like a shifting wind, relax suddenly, and wail in a gentle baby sort of way only to regain his fire moments later and rip wildly again into the next chorus. His tone, an amazing combination of the harsh and the tender, comes out sounding very much like a Coltrane-Parker combination sandwich. It is at once searing and soulful - not easy to forget.”

- Sid Lazard, Jazz musician

From my perspective, the career of one of my favorite alto saxophonists went from “Fantastic” to “Cloudy and Cool” to Invisible.

Like so many other Jazz artists who came on the Jazz scene during the Golden Age of Modern Jazz from 1945-1965, Strozier was gone from it by the 1980’s.

Frank’s career had such a promising beginning with VeeJay albums to his credit as a member of drummer Walter Perkins MJT+2, an LP on VeeJay entitled The Young Lions with trumpeter Lee Morgan and tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter and two LP’s on that label under his own name: The Fantastic Frank Strozier and Frank Strozier Cloudy and Cool.

[You’ll find a link to Jazz historian Noal Cohen’s comprehensive discography on Frank at the end of this piece.]

Jazz columnist and critic Ralph Gleason predicted after his first hearing Frank Strozier recently that "we will all be hearing a lot more from this Memphis-born youngster."

Sid Lazard had this to say about Frank in his liner notes to The Fantastic Frank Strozier:

“The guy is just plain great - one of the freshest, swingingest, just all around bestest musicians on the jazz scene. Strozier is a triple threat. In addition to being an alto saxophonist of the highest quality, he is also a gifted writer and arranger.

In this album he displays his three talents with brilliance. Strozier's appearance and modest demeanour belie his wealth of talent. He's a quiet little blond guy whom you'd hardly notice in an empty room, but when he blows - a giant emerges.

Classifying Strozier's style isn't easy. He's not made in anybody's image, although the influences of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and even Clifford Brown are often evident.

Strozier attacks every solo viciously, like a hungry hound ripping into a piece of raw meat. He can grab a line and strangle it in a profusion of notes, then, like a shifting wind, relax suddenly, and wail in a gentle baby sort of way only to regain his fire moments later and rip wildly again into the next chorus. His tone, an amazing combination of the harsh and the tender, comes out sounding very much like a Coltrane-Parker combination sandwich. It is at once searing and soulful - not easy to forget.”

Sadly, it was all too easy to forget because as Mike Baille recounts in the following insert notes from the 1996 CD reissue of Frank Strozier: Cool and Cloudy:

It could be said that Frank Strozier has not enjoyed over the years the acclaim and wider recognition which his alto saxophone playing so clearly merits. But that is the way of things, and with this CD, it is to be hoped that his name and talents will be more widely known.

He first saw the light of day in Memphis, Tennessee, on the 13th of June, 1937, and fellow students at the school he attended have included tenor saxophonist George Coleman, altoist Hank Crawford, trumpeter Booker Little, and pianist Harold Mabern. Frank's mother played piano, and so he studied that instrument to begin with before taking up the saxophone. After graduating in 1954, he moved to Chicago in order to study clarinet at the Chicago Conservatory of Music.

There, in the Windy City, he first came to the attention of the jazz cognoscenti and built a solid reputation for himself through his association and playing with Booker Little.

Strozier once toured the West Coast with Miles Davis' group, and was held in very high regard by his fellow musicians. That giant of the tenor saxophone Dexter Gordon said, for instance, "I dig the charm and subtlety that Frank Strozier gets out of his horn," while trumpeter Woody Shaw called Strozier's playing "intelligent and stimulating."

Drummer Shelly Manne was even more explicit when he stated that "Frank Strozier is one of the finest saxophone players I've had the pleasure of working with. He is creative. He is an individualist. He has a beautiful melodic sense. He swings hard and besides all this, he is a wonderful composer."

Praise indeed, and the three jazz musicians quoted above might well have had this album in mind when making their comments.

The genuine jazz buff will enjoy hearing the different takes of the enclosed recordings, and it would be as invidious as it is pointless to say which ones are 'the best'. That's not what jazz is about, although it would be fair to say that it's what make jazz so fascinating, and so very different from all other kinds of music. Cloudy And Cool is an attractive theme, and sounds to these ears like an amalgam of "Black Coffee" and "Parker's Mood".

A slow funky blues, all three takes show Strozier's pure alto tone to perfection. She is taken at a driving tempo and features solos all round, while Chris has the kind of chord sequence that John Coltrane used to get his teeth into, and Frank attacks it with genuine fire. The ballad No More will always be associated with Billie Holiday, while the gently swinging Nice 'N Easy calls to mind another Frank - Sinatra! (Vernel Fournier's brushwork here is noteworthy.) The two standards, Stairway To The Stars and Day In Day Out, both receive a good workout from Strozier. The former is Strozier all the way, a fine example of his ballad playing, while the latter is taken at a fast clip, the rhythm section urging Strozier and pianist Billy Wallace in their respective improvisations. Wallace in fact is a very crisp keyboard stylist who supplies Strozier with just the right backing, and whose solos are never less than good. And the immaculate and swinging drumming of Vernel Fournier is well in evidence throughout the album. Originally a rhythm and blues man, he joined the jazz fraternity through his playing with Teddy Wilson, and later paid his dues at Chicago's Bee Hive club where he accompanied such greats as Sonny Stitt, Ben Webster and Lester Young, before making a name for himself with those two masters of the piano, George Shearing and Ahmad Jamal.

The keen cutting edge of Frank Strozier's alto saxophone playing is heard to good effect throughout this CD. There are echoes of both Phil Woods and Charlie Parker in his approach, but he is nevertheless his own man, and plays with great authority. One of his personal trademarks that particularly stands out is the engaging way he will tail off an improvisation with an attractive little light phrase before plunging back into the solo with a great flurry of notes. And he can also wail in a graceful and appealing kind of way. All in all, an hour and more of quality modern jazz.”

I had the good fortune to hear Frank in person a number of times as a member of Shelly Manne’s Quintet at Shelly’s Hollywood Jazz Club, The Manne Hole.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing Frank’s hard-driving, blues-inflected alto sound, the following video will introduce you to it. The tune is the title track from Frank’s Cloudy and Cool CD.

And here’s the promised link to Noal Cohen’s discography on Frank Strozier which will also provide you with a more complete overview of Frank's career.