Cecil Payne - Bright Moments (1979) [vinyl]

One of Payne's best albums. The review compares with Nick Brignola's LA Bound.

Chris Sheridan, Jazz Journal October 1980:
“The ability of groups with identical instrumentation to produce music of widely differing character is one of the constant joys of jazz. It is also a constant threat to the already fragile business of comparison, so this review intends, instead, to celebrate the positive differences between these two fine albums.
In general terms, there is the curious aspect that it is the older men who explore the more contemporary music (Equinox, Roland Kirk's Bright Moments). Brignola's album, then, is marginally the more conservative — but it is his best yet, just as Payne's is his best for a considerable time. Another point of difference is tonal. Payne, once the possessor of the hugest of baritone timbres has mellowed enormously, playing with almost no vibrato and an airy breathiness. Brignola plays his instrument fiercely, and with much of the rasping bite that characterised the younger Payne.
His programme is the more immediately infectious, with an emphasis on compelling up-tempo blowing (Quicksilver, Groovin' et al), balanced by pungency (Smada) and the sunny Latin approach (Bossa). There is only one ballad, and it is played with muscular tenderness. Payne's session, with a ballad medley succeeded by a slow, rocking modal performance, injects pace only for the boppish blues, Disorder, and Speak Low. Its depth is likely to be taken for granted, but both horns play with profundity, feeling and melodic grace. Nor does the relative immediacy of Brignola's LP debar such virtues — it possesses a conviction and inspiration which create lasting music.
Some individual honours: the warm sensitive entwining of lines in the Brignola-Dickerson duet, Spring Is Here; Watrous's incredible technique being at last geared to meaningful self-expression
(Quicksilver, Mellow Tone); Green's slippery bass, its dynamics and time; Pyne's logic and Payne's bustling lyricism; Fuller's balladic warmth (Lover Man) and up-tempo bite (Disorder). All in all, two excellent celebrations of honest music.”

01 - Ballad Medley
02 - Equinox
03 - Disorder At The Border
04 - Bright Moments
05 - Solar
06 - Speak Low

Curtis Fuller (tb) Cecil Payne (fl,bs)Mick Pyne (p) Dave Green (b) Alan Jackson (d)
London, July 19 & 20, 1979