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James Moody: „Moody 4A“

  Tobias

Jazz sax-player Moody is a name recognizable to your regular Joe Wine-Taster, and perhaps for you as it does for me, for whatever reason, his name has always conjured a younger guy, not one of those old super-legends who’s either in the grave or has one foot in it.

But holy crow, man, he’s 84, and has accumulated a bit of legend of his own, having been a part of Dizzy Gillespie’s unit (he’s with the Dizzy All Stars nowadays) and put out a set of records, as legends tend to do, on Prestige. In this quartet-setting collection of jazz standards, we’re asked to pay some attention to pianist Kenny Barron, considered one of the best pianists in the world, but it’s Moody’s genial, talkative sax that seems perpetually spotlighted.

No real burning to speak of; this is low-key high-class dinnertime stuff, such as Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” and Sammy Fain’s “Secret Love,” the latter segmented with “blues march” military snare. Barron’s comparatively uptempo “Voyage” also gets a run-through.

By Eric Saeger

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