The Ben Webster Quintet - Soulville (1976 Japanese Verve Vinyl LP Mono)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: EX
Obi: VG+

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The Ben Webster Quintet - Soulville | Vinyl LP Mono - 1976 Japanese Verve Records Reissue (MV 2583, Polydor K.K.)

The title track sets the terms immediately. "Soulville" is a blues played at a tempo so unhurried it barely qualifies as mid-tempo, and Webster's tone on it sits right at the line where warm turns to rough. There's air in every note. "Late Date," the other Webster original, pushes harder and gives Peterson a snappy solo that's closer to his usual approach, but for the rest of the album he plays with restraint, keeping his solos compact and letting Webster lead. The five standards that fill out the programme show why Webster's ballad playing became the thing he was most respected for in his later career. "Makin' Whoopee" gets a reading so soulful it barely resembles the novelty song it started as. "Where Are You" is almost impossibly delicate. "Ill Wind" closes the album in under four minutes with Webster's tone at its most vaporous, the kind of playing where you hear breath as much as note. Ellis comps quietly underneath, Brown walks without drawing attention, and Levey keeps his drumming understated enough that he never gets between Webster and the microphone.

Webster had been a dominant tenor voice in Duke Ellington's orchestra from 1940 to 1943, the period now remembered as the Blanton-Webster band, and by the time of this 1957 session for Norman Granz he was considered one of jazz's elder statesmen. The hard-bop revolution had moved the tenor saxophone in a different direction, but Webster's approach lost nothing for being unfashionable.

This is the 1976 Japanese mono reissue on Verve MV 2583, volume 5 in the Immortal Jazz On Verve VIII series, manufactured by Polydor K.K. It carries the Swing Journal Seal of Approval, the quality mark from Japan's most authoritative jazz publication.