Benny Carter and His Orchestra - Further Definitions (2019 Impulse! Vital Vinyl Reissue LP)

Benny Carter and His Orchestra - Further Definitions | Vinyl LP, 2019 Impulse! Reissue (A-12, Vital Vinyl Series) 

• Four saxophones from two generations: Benny Carter and Phil Woods on alto, Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Rouse on tenor, with Dick Katz, John Collins, Jimmy Garrison and Jo Jones, revisiting the instrumentation of Carter and Hawkins’s 1937 Paris recordings with Django Reinhardt
• Four tracks updated from those 1937 sessions (“Honeysuckle Rose”, “Crazy Rhythm”, “Blue Star”, “Cherry”) alongside Ellington’s “Cotton Tail”, Hawkins’s signature “Body and Soul”, and a Carter original
• 2019 Vital Vinyl reissue of one of the earliest Impulse! releases (catalogue A-12), pressed by GZ Media

In 1937, Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins recorded together in Paris with two European saxophonists and a rhythm section that included Django Reinhardt on guitar. Twenty-four years later, Carter revisited that instrumentation: four saxophones and rhythm, no brass, no winds. The younger generation of saxophonists is Phil Woods on alto (whose sound, one contemporary review noted, often resembled “a somewhat updated Carter”) and Charlie Rouse on tenor (best known as Thelonious Monk’s saxophonist from 1959 to 1970). The rhythm section pairs swing-era drummer Jo Jones (Count Basie’s original drummer) with Jimmy Garrison on bass, who was at that moment joining John Coltrane’s quartet. John Collins plays guitar (the role Reinhardt had occupied in 1937), and Dick Katz plays piano.

Four of the eight tracks are direct updates of the 1937 Paris recordings: “Honeysuckle Rose”, “Crazy Rhythm”, “Blue Star” and “Cherry.” Carter’s arrangements for the four saxophones are written so that eight musicians sound larger than their number, voices overlapping and separating with the precision of a big band section. “Cotton Tail” is Duke Ellington’s, taken at a pace that lets all four saxophonists stretch. “Body and Soul” gives Hawkins space to revisit his most famous piece, twenty-two years after the 1939 recording that defined it. Hawkins was 57 at the time of this session and, by all accounts, playing at the top of his form. Carter was 54 and had spent much of the previous decade working as a Hollywood arranger and conductor, making this album a return to playing. “Doozy”, Carter’s original, closes the album. Bob Thiele produced for Impulse!, the label’s twelfth release. Martin Williams wrote the liner notes. This 2019 pressing is part of the Vital Vinyl reissue series, pressed by GZ Media. Catalogue number A-12.