Brothers And Other Mothers - Savoy 2LP - 24/48 Vinyl Rip

BROTHERS AND OTHER MOTHERS – (LINER NOTES) Part One® 1976 by Mark Gardner CODA Magazine

"Tides of musical influence are virtually impossible to monitor with complete accuracy. And in jazz, a young music still and one that has always been in a hurry, the problem is even more complex. Names and styles pass rapidly before our eyes and ears with disconcerting speed. This is not the scene for the leisurely, scholarly chronicler who likes ordered, out-and-dried developments, easy to trace.

So if an inquiring spirit poses the question, "Who was the first saxophonist to latch on to what Lester Young was into in the late 1930?" There is only one honest answer, "Who knows?" Influences are absorbed, often unconsciously, at other times deliberately (though perhaps not admitted), frequently quite casually. The process of widespread musical assimilation of new ideas in a constantly shifting artistic area like jazz is remarkably swift. One can notice significant changes, accepted and incorporated into the styles of numerous players, within months, even weeks.

There will always be the imitators, the mimics who can copy in meticulous detail the work of a true creator. But in jazz outright imitation is not as widespread as we may sometimes feel. Indeed, one of the fascinating aspects of the music is to view the innovations and to listen to the myriad ways they are expressed by various jazz practitioners who may not be originators but who do possess individualistic qualities.

There is nothing especially admirable about a musician who switches completely from one style to another which is coming into vogue. But an established player who shows he has been keeping his ears open for new things that he likes, and demonstrates the fact with a particular phrase, a tonal inflection, maybe just the choice of a certain tune, is informing us that he and the music are alive and growing.
The phenomenon of Lester Young's enveloping influence on young saxophone players between 1940 and 1950, and beyond has, perhaps, been over-simplified. The shadow of Pres was cast far beyond the generation of white tenor players who emerged from the wartime big bands, a refuge for many who were either too young or too clever to be drafted. The young, and not-so-young, black players were equally touched by Lester whose conception, let it be noted. penetrated deeply into all corners of jazz and was by no means an exclusive source for reedmen. Trumpeters, pianists. trombonists, singers and drummers all learned invaluable lessons from digging Young gliding out of the Basie section or riming those deceptively nonchalant gems behind Billie.

One can only generalize about how, why, when and where Pres seemed to permeate jazz and help to lead the music from swing into bebop in the most relaxed and logical way. Charlie Parker was on hand to crystallize and extend the direction, and meanwhile Pres went right along his own easy and supple path. His music changed, too, and young guys picked up on those shifts. But, unquestionably, Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Teddy Edwards. James Moody, Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt were just as aware of/and affected by Pres as were their white contemporaries Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Allen Eager, Brew Moore and Herbie Steward. So too were older men like Flip Phillips, Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Tate and Georgie Auld.
Perhaps the key difference between, say Dexter and Getz, was that Gordon had also listened profitably to Hawkins, Webster and Byas, while Stan appeared to be a Pres man and a Dexter Gordon admirer! Ideas were exchanged more readily in those days and to unravel the cross-pollination of musical thought that went on between the guys involved would be impossible now.
But we can examine a goodly slice of recorded evidence, enjoyable clues and pointers and fine music to boot, within the covers of this key reissue. In this set can be heard a superstar in embryo (Stan Getz). a living legend (Allen Eager), two departed legends (Brew Moore, Serge Chaloff), Mr. Swing (Zoot Sims), and the complete musician, composer/arranger/soloist (Al Cohn), They all happened to be saxophonists who came to prominence immediately after the war. Four-Cohn, Getz, Sims and Chaloff-were Brothers in the famous Herman bebop hand. Moore (he never worked with Herman) was a brother by adoption while Eager had been a member of Woody's saxophone section in 1944...."
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