Personnel:
Conte Candoli, Kenny Dorham (tp), Phil Woods (as), Al Cohn (ts), Hank Jones (p), John Simmons (b), Kenny Clarke (d)
Reference: FSRCD 431
Bar code: 8427328604314
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Aside from being a symbol of the best to be had in jazz from the fans point of view, Birdland was to the jazzman what the Metropolitan Opera House was to the singer: when youve been hired to perform there, youve made it!, wrote Nat Shapiro in 1956. Birdland manager Morris Levy, started in 1955 a series of annual tours featuring the best artists to play in the night club. Levy in keeping with the idea of always presenting something new and fresh, for its second annual tour combined an all-star group called East-West Jazz Septet.
The septets frontline consisted of trumpeters Conte Candoli and Kenny Dorham, tenorist Al Cohn and altoist Phil Woods. As for the rhythmic section, after undergoing some changes, included pianist Hank Jones, bassist John Simmons and drummer Kenny Clarke. Two of jazzdoms finest modern arrangers, Manny Albam and Ernie Wilkins, were commissioned to write a dozen original compositions and, after a week of careful rehearsals, away they all flew, playing happy, swinging music to an estimated total of some 200,000 bird fanciers who paid their way into thirty-seven concerts in twenty-five cities. This is a compilation of some of their best performances of these 12 excellent arrangements recorded live during those concerts.
