Search - Jimmy Cobb :: Cobb's Corner (Hybr)

Subtlety, sophistication and understated feeling.

contempo.jazz | San Francisco/London | 08/19/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The legendary jazz drummer, Jimmy Cobb, is a superb, mostly self-taught musician and is the elder statesman of all of the incredible Miles Davis bands. Jimmy's inspirational work with Miles, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly and Co. spanned 1957 until 1963, and included the masterpiece "Kind of Blue", the most popular jazz recording in history.

On this album he leads a stellar quartet made up of the brilliant trumpeter Roy Hargrove, pianist Ronnie Mathews and bassist Peter Washington. The programme mostly features a selection of standards including "You and the Night and the Music", "My Romance" and "Lotus Blossom".

This us a recording that would have been less surprising had it been issued in, say, 1960, but seems a minor miracle these days.

It features a compatible quartet playing mainly standards with subtlety, sophistication and understated feeling.

The drummer and leader, Jimmy Cobb, is ideally alert and adroit.

Roy Hargrove, a trumpeter who often seems like a brilliant soloist in search of a suitable idiom, has seldom sounded more at ease than he does here - creating wonderfully tender versions of "Never Let Me Go" and "My Foolish Heart".

The underrated pianist Ronnie Mathews is on serene form, too. The single-microphone sound-engineering creates the illusion that you are in the middle of the band - which, in this case, is a delightful place to be.

Personnel:

Jimmy Cobb - (drums), Roy Hargrove - (trumpet), Ronnie Mathews - (piano),

Peter Washington - (bass)



Kind of Blue

Moment to Moment

The RH Factor: Hard Groove

"

Roy Hargrove's best

David C. Stephens | Colorado | 02/25/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are two albums with Cobb as a leader, but featuring Roy Hargrove. Both quartets are excellent and both show Roy at his lyrical best.



Sonics are exceptional and the music is top-drawer."