John Lewis - Grand Encounter: 2 Degrees East, 3 Degrees West (1978 Japanese Pacific Jazz Mono Vinyl LP)

John Lewis - Grand Encounter: 2 Degrees East, 3 Degrees West | Vinyl LP - 1978 Japanese Pacific Jazz Mono Reissue (GXF-3101, King Record Co., obi)

The title tells the story. Grand Encounter puts two East Coast musicians, the Modern Jazz Quartet's John Lewis and Percy Heath, in a Los Angeles studio with three from the West, tenor player Bill Perkins, guitarist Jim Hall and drummer Chico Hamilton, and lets the two schools meet on tape. What comes out is cool jazz at its most relaxed and considered. Lewis plays with the spare, classically minded touch he brought to the MJQ, Perkins answers with a warm tenor that owes a lot to Lester Young, and the whole thing moves at a walking pace that never feels slow. The one original, Lewis's blues "Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West", sits at the centre, but the standards are the heart of it, "Skylark" and "Easy Living" turned tender, "Almost Like Being In Love" stretched past nine minutes. For Jim Hall it was one of his first important dates, and you can already hear the clean, thinking-man's guitar that would make his name.

The record has aged better than the East-versus-West rivalry that framed it. That whole debate, the idea that West Coast jazz was cooler and softer while the East was hotter and harder, faded long ago, but the music made in its name survives, and this is one of the quiet high points. It helped launch Jim Hall, gave Bill Perkins one of his best showcases, and stands as a reminder that Lewis was as fine a small-group pianist as he was a composer.

This copy is the 1978 Japanese mono reissue on Pacific Jazz, manufactured by King Record Co., catalogue number GXF-3101.