Ben Webster - King Of The Tenors (1976 Japanese Verve Vinyl LP Mono)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: VG+ (writing on back)

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Ben Webster - King Of The Tenors | Vinyl LP Mono - 1976 Japanese Verve Records Reissue (MV 2554, Polydor K.K.)

This was originally the second album ever released on Norman Granz's Norgran label, issued in 1954 as The Consummate Artistry of Ben Webster. When Granz folded Norgran into Verve Records in 1957, he reissued it with the bolder title, and it's been King of the Tenors ever since. The album draws from two sessions recorded seven months apart. The December 1953 Los Angeles date features a septet with Benny Carter's alto and Harry Edison's trumpet alongside Webster, producing a warm, Basie-inflected ensemble sound on tracks like "Tenderly," "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and "Pennies From Heaven." Webster plays ballads with that signature breathy tenderness, but on "Jive At Six" (his own uptempo original) the whole group opens up and there's real heat. The May 1953 New York trio tracks strip the instrumentation back to Webster with Peterson, Brown, Barney Kessel on guitar and J.C. Heard on drums. "Cottontail" is the centrepiece. Webster's 1940 solo on this piece with the Ellington orchestra is one of the defining moments in swing tenor, and this version lets him stretch further in a small group context. "Danny Boy" closes the album, played with the kind of slow, deliberate phrasing where each note sounds like it costs something.

Peterson and Brown are the constants across both sessions, and Peterson's approach here is closer to accompaniment than showcase, much as it would be on the later Soulville sessions. This is the April 1976 Japanese mono reissue on Verve MV 2554, volume 2 in the Immortal Jazz On Verve VI series, manufactured by Polydor K.K.