Did You Call Her Today? for Ben Webster
Ceora for Lee Morgan
Good Queen Bess for Johnny Hodges
Prelude to a Kiss for Duke Ellington
Little Jazz for Roy Eldridge
Blue Monk for Thelonious Monk
Someday You'll Be Sorry for Louis Armstrong
Nuages for Django Reinhardt
Undecided for Charlie Shavers
Elegy in Blue
Benny Carter (alto sax)
Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet -vocal on "Someday")
Cedar Walton (piano)
Mundell Lowe (guitar)
Ray Brown (bass)
Jeff Hamilton (drums)
rec. 1994
Benny Carter, ever immaculate,
ever the articulate lyricist, was still producing
the goods in 1994. Elegy in Blue carries dedications
to named musicians, though in one or two cases
Carter hadn’t known them personally. But in
a sense that’s of little account. This is
simply a highly superior session which paired
Carter with ‘Sweets’ Edison and a stellar
rhythm section; you often see the word used
but in this case it’s true.
The fluency of his phrasing
was a marvel. With Ray Brown’s big, oddly
Mingus-inflected bass anchoring things in
the first track Did You Call Her Today?
we know we’re in for a swinging time. Ceora
is a bossa nova, with delicate yet propulsive
lines from Cedar Walton, some good muted Sweets
and a fade out ending. Edison plays open on
Good Queen Bess in which Carter’s darting,
harmonically deft work is as ear catching
as ever. He’s typically elastic and tonally
expansive on Prelude to a Kiss where
the Duke’s more oratorical aspects are celebrated.
Sweets ratchets up the tension in Little
Jazz, naturally a showpiece that allows
him to salute but not replicate (who could?
What would be the point anyway?) the powerhouse
that was Roy Eldridge.
The groups just about gets
the right sort of rugged sound in Blue
Monk. But it’s more or less of a straight
ahead blues blowing session with each member
of the band retaining his own individuality,
Carter notably so. One can hear the fatter
tone that Edison could extract from his horn
in Someday You’ll Be Sorry, doubtless
in emulation of Louis. He even takes a vocal.
(It’s all right.) Nuages is, unexpectedly,
another bossa nova graced by a first class
Mundell Lowe solo. Swinging and up-tempo the
Charlie Shavers tribute, Undecided,
attests to the sheer mobility of this group.
Sweets alludes to Shaver’s glittering excitement;
Hamilton employs his brushes with superb discretion
and trades choruses with the witty Brown.
Perhaps it would have been ungentlemanly of
him to have done so – he was always the most
sensitive of men – but it would have been
splendid to have heard Carter playing trumpet
on this date; he was a fine player on that
instrument and the thought of Edison and Carter
trading fours certainly fills me with (now
unfulfilled) anticipation.
So finally there’s Elegy
in Blue, the longest track and dedicated
to a late friend of Carter’s. It gives the
band more time to stretch out which they do
with great feeling. It ends a session, originally
released on MusicMasters, of consistency,
variety and sheer excellence.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
NIMBUS NI 2702 [69:24]
