Gene Ammons 1951-1953 CD

This CD contains a rousing performance much in the style as the tracks Ammons had cut with his father for Mercury a few years before. "Echo Chamber Blues" with its eerie sound is not entirely convincing, but such audio experiments were not unusual at the

Personnel: Gene Ammons (tenor saxophone); Sonny Stitt (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Eli Dabney (tenor saxophone, trombone); McKinley Easton, Rudy Williams (baritone saxophone); Johnny Coles, Bill Massey (trumpet); J. Alan Johnson (trombone); Clarence "Sleepy" Anderson, John Houston (piano); George Brown , Bob & Pauline Wilson, Teddy Stewart (drums).
Liner Note Author: Anatol Schenker.
This CHRONOLOGICAL CLASSICS set features some of the early recordings by the great tenor sax player Gene Ammons. While Ammons would later move in more experimental directions, his early albums, most notably those for Prestige, fell into a smooth, swinging bebop mode that showed the heavy influence of Charlie Parker. The music is very much of its era, but Ammons's full, earthy sax tone is heard to fine effect on these sides, making 1951-1953 a compelling portrait of the artist as a young man.
This fourth installment in the Classics Gene Ammons chronology sews together everything recorded and released under his name for the Prestige, Decca, and United record labels between June 1951 and June 1953. Instrumental highlights, in addition to Ammons' sensually charged tenor saxophone, include Sonny Stitt on supporting tenor (on tracks 13-16, Stitt plays baritone sax); trombonist J.J. Johnson (tracks 13-16); and trumpeter supreme Johnny Coles, who was destined to make outstanding records with James Moody and Charles Mingus (tracks 17-24). This particular slice of Gene Ammons' career is delightfully gutsy and easy to relate to. The Prestige material is classic Jug; his brief involvement with Decca is a thrilling sideshow, and those sanguine, sultry, scruffy sides for Chicago's tiny United record label are precious artifacts of inestimable worth. Note that the rocking "Jim Dawgs" is an entirely different entity from a similarly titled bop exercise recorded by Ike Quebec for Savoy Records in August of 1945. During his heyday, Gene Ammons represented the perfect blend of swing, bop, and R&B. This wonderful compilation presents a healthy stripe of vivid material from his label-hopping period during the years immediately preceding the Eisenhower era. ~ arwulf arwulf