When tenor saxophonist Ben Webster left the U.S. to reside in Europe, it was for two reasons -- opportunity and respect. He was financially more able to make his mark there, as a living legend, in a position where many other African-American jazzmen would follow his lead. This eight-CD box set from the Storyville label documents many recordings he did for the company -- in live club settings, mostly in Denmark, but also England, Finland, Sweden, and Germany. There are studio dates from radio sessions; various small ...
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When tenor saxophonist Ben Webster left the U.S. to reside in Europe, it was for two reasons -- opportunity and respect. He was financially more able to make his mark there, as a living legend, in a position where many other African-American jazzmen would follow his lead. This eight-CD box set from the Storyville label documents many recordings he did for the company -- in live club settings, mostly in Denmark, but also England, Finland, Sweden, and Germany. There are studio dates from radio sessions; various small ensembles (primarily quartets); two full CDs of big bands in rehearsals or with completed finished product (one of the big-band CDs including strings); and collaborations with such notables as Teddy Wilson, Buck Clayton, Dexter Gordon, and Clark Terry. Also included are a handful of stateside sessions before he moved, one rare recording of him playing stride piano, duets with bassist Milt Hinton, some drummerless trios, and previously unissued material. What you get is a potpourri of his works including swing standards, a little bop, blues, original jam tunes, and of course the ballads that identify him as a true master of the idiom. Generally, Webster still sounds pretty good, with his full tone and cool persona intact. The time line starts with short American studio recordings of 1959-1962 and East Coast dates in 1963-1964, moving to Ronnie Scott's club in London during 1964 and then to greater Northern Europe from 1965 until his death in Holland in 1973. The downside is that the collection is not programmed with much continuity or cohesion. Tracks leap from year to year with different bands, you don't really hear a progression of his style in Europe, and the club dates have Webster's tenor often "in the red," or distorted. You do hear his fluid technique and slightly extrapolated, witty melody lines, but not the cleanliness of his pure sound. The best sessions, which unfortunately also display the less-than-optimal opportunity to hear Webster himself, are the live dates from the Café Monmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark, a city where Webster resided (Amsterdam being the other), and one cut from the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland. Fellow expatriates pianist Kenny Drew and drummer Al Heath join with Webster and the great Danish bassist Niels-Henning Řrsted Pedersen to form the nucleus of as solid a jazz quartet as one can get. There are also nights where either Rune Carlsson or Alex Riel replace Heath. The brief collaborations with Gordon work extremely well, with Clayton (in Antwerp, 1967, on the fifth CD) not so much, and alongside Terry there's a bit of magic. Webster worked frequently with local piano-bass-drums combos, too -- British pianist Stan Tracey, Swedish pianist Lars Sjösten, and briefly Camille de Ceunynck being the most effective accompanists. Trumpeters Rolf Ericson and Arne Ryskog are also good foils for Webster. On the seventh CD, the stock chart collaboration with the Danish Radio Big Band provides the most refined and populist music, while the eighth CD with the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra rehearsal sessions is ragged at best, producing only a scant few finished pieces with vocalist Matty Peters and Webster cutting up, but finalizing little polished music. Of the recordings done in the U.S., there are club sets in Providence, RI, in 1963 with the Mike Renzi Trio that have a raw edge production-wise, while the older studio masters or alternate takes of Webster's originals, the blues tune "Poutin'" and bopper "Randle's Island" (on the eighth CD) with a quartet featuring pianist Jimmy Rowles, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Mel Lewis, are complete, but in need of editing or redoing. The third CD, with 11 tracks, sports the most spirited playing, at Ronnie Scott's with Tracey, bassist Rick Laird, and drummer Jackie Dougan. They breeze through "Gone with the Wind," Charlie Parker's evergreen bop icon "Confirmation" (credited as written by Dizzy Gillespie, correctly identified in the liner notes),..
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Add this copy of Dig Ben! to cart. $65.63, new condition, Sold by Importcds rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sunrise, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Storyville.
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Add this copy of Dig Ben to cart. $82.90, new condition, Sold by newtownvideo rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from huntingdon valley, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Storyville Records.
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