All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 11/21/2008
"Man, I feel like cookin' this evening,"* Frank Butler proclaimed while setting up his drums in the Contemporary Records studio on October 6, 1956. Over a half-century later, his words still have the ring of absolute truth. The session, led by bassist {{Curtis Counce = 5946}} and released in 1957 as Landslide, was an incandescent beginning to Butler's recording career. The California-based...
LP Cover Lover (Free subscription) | 10/01/2008
“You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce!” Contemporary Records. (1956) Great West Coast Jazz featuring Harold Land on tenor saxophone, Jack Sheldon on trumpet, and Carl Perkins on piano. Listen to “Complete” - the opening track, here.
wordsandmusic (Free subscription) | 01/25/2008
Continuing apologies for lack of blog presence... lingering illness (cough bloody cough) and another project that I am way behind on (the CD/Download label) have taken my time... so here are three tracks to re-start the fandango... Holding the bop line in 1957... on the West Coast... Curtis Counce , another who went too young (died in 1963), a respected bass player around and about, formed his group...
All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 07/18/2007
Cool Hot and Swingin', a medley of Stan Kenton treasures from Bill Lichtensauer's ever-resourceful Tantara Productions, recaps a splendid concert performance in February 1956 at the Civic Auditorium in San Bernardino, CA. This was a time when Kenton had pared the trombone and reed sections to four members each and added two French horns and a tuba, a departure that lasted about a year. It was also...
All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 06/11/2007
Curtis Counce/Jack Sheldon/Harold Land/Carl Perkins/Frank Butler Quintet Complete Studio Recordings Gambit Records 2007 The beauty of this music is so much greater than the sum of its parts that a listener hardly knows where to begin. The two-disc package comprises the main recordings on the Contemporary label 1956-1958 by the short-lived Curtis Counce Group, whose expressed purpose was to develop...
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