NEW LINK in comments.
I've remarked elsewhere that it's a damning indictment of the American Record industry that so much of the best jazz recorded by American musicians in the US itself, in the 70s and 80s, was done by European or Japanese companies!
Here’s atypical example. The Jazztet reformed in 1982. The first studio album to result was recorded by East Wind in Japan, the second by the Italian Soul Note label in Milan and then this in New York by the Japanese Baystate label. It was to be another three years before the next studio recording, also in New York but at last by a US company, the resurrected Contemporary label.
The New York Times: The Jazztet Comes In , But Leaves Nostalgia Out
By John S. Wilson, Published: November 18, 1983:
When a jazz group that was once a great success gets together again after a long separation, the expectation is that there will be a good deal of nostalgia involved, a revival of tunes and arrangements associated with the group. But when the Jazztet - a sextet organized in 1959 by Art Farmer, then a trumpeter and now a flugelhornist, and Benny Golson, the saxophonist - came together in 1982 after a lapse of two decades, the musicians made a point of not getting out their old arrangements.
''Never would we play that stuff again!'' Mr. Golson declared the other day as the Jazztet prepared to go into Fat Tuesday's for the third time since its revival a year and a half ago.
''Initially, the Jazztet was a sensation,'' the saxophonist continued. ''But after about a year, there was growing criticism that the group was too organized, too tight, too big-little- bandish, like the old John Kirby group but a little more up to date.''
To get away from both the appearance and the sound of organized formality, Mr. Golson recalled, the six musicians got rid of their music and their music stands and held ''memorizing rehearsals.'' ''We rehearsed mentally,'' he explained. ''We'd just look at a new arrangement before we played a note - just look and look and look. Then we'd go up on the stand with no music and no rehearsal and play it.''
Just Two Holdovers
The only holdovers from the Jazztet's original scores are Mr. Golson's ''Killer Joe'' and Mr. Farmer's ''Mox Nix.'' Otherwise, Mr. Golson's new arrangements are structured to give either Mr. Farmer or himself the melody, while the trombonist Curtis Fuller, another member of the old Jazztet, weaves around them.
After the 1962 breakup of the original group, which also included McCoy Tyner on piano, Mr. Farmer's late brother Addison on bass and Dave Bailey on drums, Mr. Golson and Mr. Farmer went on to separate careers. Mr. Farmer led his own groups for several years, and in the late 1960's, settled in Vienna and toured the world, picking up rhythm sections wherever he played.
Mr. Golson stayed in New York, working in recording studios, making television commercials and playing for pop singers while he studied the techniques of writing for movies and television. When he finally pulled up stakes and moved to Hollywood in 1967, he began working steadily on both films and television series, including ''It Takes a Thief'' and ''M*A*S*H.''
''Once I got to Hollywood, I made a conscious effort not to play,'' Mr. Golson said. ''I didn't want to be labeled a be-bopper or a jazzman or an orchestrator. Out there, you can fall into a niche that you can never get out of. I wanted to be labeled a composer.''
But in 1975, he got a call from New York to play a concert of his own compositions at Town Hall with the 18- piece Collective Black Artists Ensemble.
'I'd Be Playing in My Mind'
''By then I'd found that when I was listening to music, I'd be playing in my mind,'' Mr. Golson said. ''My fingers were moving mentally, and I was getting the emotional feeling that I had when I was actually playing. I was beginning to get the itch to play and when the Town Hall offer came, I took it.''
He began practicing and discovered, to his surprise, that his style had completely changed.
The success of that concert led him into what he describes as ''semi-retirment'': every eight or nine months, he would do a short tour in Japan or Europe, then go back to his writing.
Two years ago he got a call from a European promoter, Alexander Zivkovic, suggesting that he come to Europe and asking what ideas he had for a group. ''I'd been working in Japan with Curtis Fuller, who was the trombonist in the Jazztet, and I suggested that he and I might be part of a quartet,'' Mr. Golson recalled. ''Then I added, on the spur of the moment, 'Maybe we could put the Jazztet together again.' '' ''Fantastic!'' Zivkovic exclaimed. So I called Art and Curtis and Tootie Heath, who had followed Dave Bailey as our drummer. I knew it was too late to get McCoy Tyner because he'd become a star, and stars don't like to travel in somebody else's group.''
01 - Autumn Leaves
02 - Jam 'n Boogie
03 - Caribbean Runabout
04 - Dark Eyes
05 - Red Dragonfly
06 - Solstice
07 - From Dream To Dream
Benny Golson (ts), Art Farmer (fh), Curtis Fuller (tb), Mickey Tucker (p), Rufus Reid (b), Billy Hart (d)
New York City, November 22 & 23, 1983
(Baystate LP)
