Album Reviews

Back in the late 1950’s, veteran alto sax player, bandleader and arranger Benny Carter, who died at 95 back in July of 2003, spent much of his time arranging for television shows, among them Lee Marvin’s Chicago-based cop show “M-Squad”. Why no label has reissued 1959’s The Music From M Squad (RCA Living Stereo LSP-2062) remains a mystery to me. It’s got great big band “crime” music, much of which was arranged by Carter and written by him, session conductor Stanley Wilson, Count Basie and “Johnny Williams” (thatJohn Williams). Recorded by the great Al Schmitt at RCA Victor Music Center of The World, LA, it also sounds pretty damn good!

But back to our album: for this 1961 session under his own name, Carter chose to reunite with tenor sax great Coleman Hawkins and re-cut their classic performances of “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Crazy Rhythm” originally issued back in 1937 ( the time span equivalent of something being re-cut today originally from 1982!). Carter even went back to the original orchestration for four saxes, piano, bass, drums and guitar. The other two saxes are Phil Woods (alto), and Charlie Rouse (tenor), then with the Thelonious Monk Quartet. Add Dick Katz on piano, Nat “King Cole” guitarist John Collins (Django Reinhardt played on the original) and the rhythm section of Jimmy Garrison and Jo Jones and what do you think you get?

The tempi are mostly fast, the solos hot, the four sax players trading off intricate lines backed by guitar vamp, and the suave rhythm section. Nothing challenging in the listening, and to some ears this will sound “old-fashioned,” but so smooth, and so classic! The four sax greats school like fish one measure and dart off on individual tears the next. Even a classic warhorse like “Body and Soul” holds interest.

There were separate engineers for the mono and stereo recordings. I understand Speakers Corner’s decision to go with the stereo version, for commercial purposes, but in reality, it’s a “dual mono” mix, with summed bass in the center, meaning instead of a true stereo mix, the musicians might as well be on two different continents, connected only by a thin puddle of studio reverb. So drums and two of the saxes are on the right, and guitar and the other two saxes are on the left, with the bass between your eyes. It works fine as long as you don’t concentrate on the lack of integration.

Recording quality is generally quite good, though not to the transparent levels of “audiophile” quality sound. As between an original Impulse and the Speakers Corner reissue, the reissue is actually sweeter and richer sounding, with a bit of added tape hiss on top. The original, as with many old Impulses, has a slightly hard, somewhat metallic sheen on top even as it provides a more taut and detailed picture. One curious event mars the reissue: at the beginning of “The Midnight Sun Will Never Set,” only the right channel’s reverb feed can be heard. A few second later you can hear a switch being flipped adding the two saxes’ direct feeds to the mix. It’s not on my original pressing so I’m not sure what caused it on the reissue.

In any case, a short, swinging session many of you will definitely enjoy both musically and to a lesser degree, sonically.