Johnny Griffin & Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - Ow! Live At The Penthouse (1962)

Ow! Live at The Penthouse is a collection of previously-unissued recordings by the supercharged saxophone duo of Johnny Griffin / Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis captured over 2 nights at the famous Penthouse jazz club in Seattle, WA in 1962. Though the tenor sax battle became a fixture of the hard bop era after Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray established the format with “The Chase” in 1947, no duo was as powerful or as prolific as Davis, a veteran of the Count Basie Orchestra and a popular trio with organist Shirley Scott, and Griffin, noted for his high-voltage work with Thelonious Monk. The pair who became known known as “the Tough Tenors” cut nine LPs – including four live albums caught at Minton’s in New York – for Prestige and Jazzland in 1960-62. This limited-edition deluxe CD set features the potent rhythm section of Horace Parlan on piano, Buddy Catlett on bass and Art Taylor on drums. ~ Bandcamp.com. 

Reel To Reel, RTR-CD-003, 2019
Recorded 30th May (#1-7) & 6th June (#8-15), 1962 Live at The Penthouse, Seattle, WA
Broadcast Live on KING-FM, Seattle, Washington, USA 

Musicians:
Johnny Griffin - Tenor Saxophone
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - Tenor Saxophone
Horace Parlan - Piano
Buddy Catlett - Bass
Art Taylor - Drums 

Tracks:
01. Intermission Riff {Ray Wetzel} / Intro By Jim Wilkie (0:53)
02. Blues Up And Down {Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt} (6:48)
03. Ow! {Dizzy Gillespie} (8:20)
04. Spoken Introduction (0:09)
05. Bahia {Ary Barroso} (8:44)
06. Spoken Introduction (0:05)
07. Blue Lou {Edgar Sampson, Irving Mills} (4:11)
08. Second Balcony Jump {Billy Eckstine, Gerald Valentine} (7:13)
09. Spoken Outro (0:08)
10. How Am I To Know? {Jack King} (10:14)
11. Spoken Introduction (0:09)
12. Sophisticated Lady {Duke Ellington} (4:03)
13. Spoken Introduction (0:09)
14. Tickle Toe {Lester Young} (6:36)
15. Intermission Riff {Ray Wetzel} / Outro By Jim Wilkie (0:56) 

Total Time: 58:45 

Credits:
Producer, Executive Producer, Photo Research, Notes - Cory Weeds
Producer, Photo Research, Notes - Zev Feldman
Associate Producer, Notes - Jim Wilkie, Charlie Puzzo Jr.
Original Recording Engineer - Fred Stimson
Sound Restoration - Chris Gestrin
Mastering [LP] - Bernie Grundman [Hollywood, California]
Photography - Lee Tanner, Esmond Edwards, Burt Goldblatt
Photography [Cover] - Don Schlitten
Art Direction and Design - John Sellards
Album Package Design - Dan Forte
Liner Notes - Ted Panken, Michael Weiss

Coleman Hawkins - Wrapped Tight (1966)

Hawkins's last strong recording finds the veteran, 43 years after his recording debut with Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds, improvising creatively on a wide variety of material on this CD, ranging from "Intermezzo" and "Here's That Rainy Day" to "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" and "Indian Summer." Best is an adventurous version of "Out of Nowhere" that shows that the tenor-saxophonist was still coming up with new ideas in 1965. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide.

As an In expression, “wrapped tight” can have a lot of meanings, all of them superlative. A girl abundantly endowed with Nature’s most attractive gifts is said to be “wrapped tight.” A jaguar swinging down the highway with Count Basie at the wheel is, in a special sense, wrapped is wrapped tight. And among musicians, because of his ability, imagination and universally recognized authority, Coleman Hawkins is assuredly wrapped tight.

The encomium can well be applied to this album, too, because it puts the great tenor saxophonist in contexts that fit him excellently. Wrapped Tight, a Manny Albam original, is one of six arrangements written by Manny that are extraordinarily successful in creating a snug, orchestral atmosphere, and this despite the limited instrumentation. More than mere points of arrival and departure, they serve to enhance the Hawkins improvisations. Enframing and supporting them, they also remove a measure of responsibility from the star’s shoulders, and his playing is in consequence the more relaxed. That he remains perfectly capable of fashioning entire performances himself is very adequately shown on Out of Nowhere and the five-minute Indian Summer, where he is accompanied by the rhythm section only.

In short, then titles wrapped tight by the man for whom the tenor saxophone was invented - Coleman Hawkins.
~ Stanley Dance, from Liner Notes.

Impulse! Records/GRP Records; AS-87/GRP 11092; 1966/1991

Recorded 22^nd February (#1-6), 1965 and 1^st March, 1965 (#7-12) at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Track Listing:

1. Marcheta {Victor Schartzinger} (3:06)

2. Intermezzo {Pietro Mascagni} (3:38)

3. Wrapped Tight {Manny Albam} (3:27)

4. Red Roses For A Blue Lady {Sid Tepper, Roy Brodsky} (2:25)

5. She's Fit {Coleman Hawkins} (2:44)

6. Beautiful Girl {Arthur Freed, Nacio Herb Brown} (4:27)

7. And I Still Love You {Pauline Rivelli, Ruth Roberts, Stanley Clayton} (3:12)

8. Bean's Place {Bob Hammer, Buck Clayton} (2:54)

9. Here's That Rainy Day {Jimmy van Heusen, Johnny Burke} (5:22)

10. I Won't Dance {Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Jerome Kern} (3:21)

11. Indian Summer {Victor Herbert, Al Dubin} (5:02)

12. Out Of Nowhere {Edward Heyman, Johnny Green} (3:42)

Personnel:

Colemans Hawkins - Tenor Saxophone

Bill Berry - Trumpet (#1,2,3,7,8)

Snooky Young - Trumpet (#4,5,6)

Urbie Green - Trombone (#1,8)

Barry Harris - Piano

Buddy Catlett - Bass

Eddie Locke - Drums

Credits:

Producer - Bob Thiele

Recording Engineer - Rudy Van Gelder