Search - Joe Venuti, Zoot Sims :: Joe & Zoot & More

It swings!!

02/15/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first saw this album mentioned in Down Beat, and the two title stars obviously caught my attention, but that didn't completely convince me that I should run out and buy it. That was achieved by the Down Beat writer's use of the magic words - Adrian Rollini. No, Rollini isn't on this session (he wasn't even around then, seeing as he died in the mid-fiftes), but the reviewer noted that Spencer Clark played in the Rollini style on this album, and not badly, either.I think Adrian would have liked Clark's work here very much. I also think Adrian would have told the sound engineer to get a better balance between the bass sax and everyone else at times, but that's beside the point. Of course the two title stars are great on the album as well! Zoot Sims plays on the first nine songs, and he plays more on the soprano sax than he does on his tenor. After listening to him on soprano, I think I have finally become de-traumatized and gotten over my sopsaxophobia brought on by having heard the ubiquitous so-called jazz musician Kenny G. That being said, Zoot's tenor work is also enjoyable; breathy, but not without focus. Venuti plays the hot numbers extraordinarily hot and the ballads wonderfully. The blend he achieves with Zoot is especially notable. Other big names on the album include Milt Hinton and Bucky Pizzarelli.The style of all the songs is not limited to a single genre. Elements of everything from trad to bop are thrown in and used tastefully. All in all, it swings!"