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Monday, December 7, 2020

Shelly Manne And His Friends

 

Step Steps Up

Shelly Manne And His Friends
Produced by Bob Thiele
Engineer: Doug Hawkins
Cover Photo: David Redern
Doctor Jazz FW38728
Teresa Gramophone Company, LTD.
1983

Recording Data:

Moonglow, Tea For Two, Step Steps Up, Step Steps Down. Shelly Manne featured with the Barney Bigard Trio (Bigard, clarinet; Eddie Heywood, piano; Manne, drums). Recorded January 22, 1944 in New York City.

How High The Moon, Penthouse Serenade, Them There Eyes, Sarcastic Lady. Shelly Manne featured with Eddie Heywood and His Orchestra (Ray Nance, trumpet and violin; Aaron Sachs, clarinet; Don Byas, tenor saxophone; Heywood, piano; John Simmons, bass; Manne on drums.) Recorded May2, 1944 in New York City.

On The Sunny Side Of The Street, Time On My Hands, Night And Day, Flamingo. Shelly Manne featured with The Eddie Heywood Trio (Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone; Heywood, piano; Manne, drums.) Recorded May 26, 1944 in New York City.

From the back cover: There is playing on this set that is equal to some of the best distillations of the jazz of the early 1940s. What a delight it is, for example, to hear Johnny Hodges again in what for him, was a rare setting – the trio date that produced On The Sunny Side Of The Street, Time On My Hands, Night And Day and Flamingo. Aficionados will remember another Hodges' Sunny Side – that soaring performance with Lionel Hampton – but this one has its own rewards, and its a real dividend to have this side available again along with the Hampton track on RCA Victor. What happens to the other three standards in that trio setting, by the way, is a classic illustration of what jazz is all about. At the time, those three songs were among the most familiar of all pop standards (and the first two in particular are still often heard, if largely in elevators). Yet then – and listening now nearly three decades later – Hodges, Heywood and Manne so transmute and personalize those songs as to make them sound brand new. If anyone asks you what the essence of jazz improvisation is, play him these three tracks.

How High The Moon
When We're Alone (Penthouse Serenade)
On The Sunny Side Of The Street
Time On My Hands
Moonglow
Tea For Two
Them There Eyes
Sarcastic Lady
Night And Day
Flamingo
Step Steps Up
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