When tenor saxophonist
Ben Webster left the U.S. to reside in Europe, it was for two reasons -- opportunity and respect. He was financially more able to make his mark there, as a living legend, in a position where many other African-American jazzmen would follow his lead. This eight-CD box set from the
Storyville label documents many recordings he did for the company -- in live club settings, mostly in Denmark, but also England, Finland, Sweden, and Germany. There are studio dates from radio sessions; various small ensembles (primarily quartets); two full CDs of big bands in rehearsals or with completed finished product (one of the big-band CDs including strings); and collaborations with such notables as
Teddy Wilson,
Buck Clayton,
Dexter Gordon, and
Clark Terry. Also included are a handful of stateside sessions before he moved, one rare recording of him playing stride piano, duets with bassist
Milt Hinton, some drummerless trios, and previously unissued material. What you get is a potpourri of his works including swing standards, a little bop, blues, original jam tunes, and of course the ballads that identify him as a true master of the idiom. Generally,
Webster still sounds pretty good, with his full tone and cool persona intact. The time line starts with short American studio recordings of 1959-1962 and East Coast dates in 1963-1964, moving to
Ronnie Scott's club in London during 1964 and then to greater Northern Europe from 1965 until his death in Holland in 1973. The downside is that the collection is not programmed with much continuity or cohesion. Tracks leap from year to year with different bands, you don't really hear a progression of his style in Europe, and the club dates have
Webster's tenor often "in the red," or distorted. You do hear his fluid technique and slightly extrapolated, witty melody lines, but not the cleanliness of his pure sound.
The best sessions, which unfortunately also display the less-than-optimal opportunity to hear
Webster himself, are the live dates from
the Cafe Monmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark, a city where
Webster resided (Amsterdam being the other), and one cut from
the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland. Fellow expatriates pianist
Kenny Drew and drummer
Al Heath join with
Webster and the great Danish bassist
Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen to form the nucleus of as solid a jazz quartet as one can get. There are also nights where either
Rune Carlsson or
Alex Riel replace
Heath. The brief collaborations with
Gordon work extremely well, with
Clayton (in Antwerp, 1967, on the fifth CD) not so much, and alongside
Terry there's a bit of magic.
Webster worked frequently with local piano-bass-drums combos, too -- British pianist
Stan Tracey, Swedish pianist
Lars Sjoesten, and briefly
Camille de Ceunynck being the most effective accompanists. Trumpeters
Rolf Ericson and
Arne Ryskog are also good foils for
Webster. On the seventh CD, the stock chart collaboration with
the Danish Radio Big Band provides the most refined and populist music, while the eighth CD with
the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra rehearsal sessions is ragged at best, producing only a scant few finished pieces with vocalist
Matty Peters and
Webster cutting up, but finalizing little polished music. Of the recordings done in the U.S., there are club sets in Providence, RI, in 1963 with
the Mike Renzi Trio that have a raw edge production-wise, while the older studio masters or alternate takes of
Webster's originals, the blues tune
"Poutin'" and bopper
"Randle's Island" (on the eighth CD) with a quartet featuring pianist
Jimmy Rowles, bassist
Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer
Mel Lewis, are complete, but in need of editing or redoing.
The third CD, with 11 tracks, sports the most spirited playing, at
Ronnie Scott's with
Tracey, bassist
Rick Laird, and drummer
Jackie Dougan. They breeze through
"Gone with the Wind," Charlie Parker's evergreen bop icon
"Confirmation" (credited as written by
Dizzy Gillespie, correctly identified in the liner notes),
"Poutin'," the well-done
"A Night in Tunisia," and
"How High the Moon." The first CD has the
Webster-
Drew-
Heath-
Pedersen combo from 1968 playing effortlessly, while the third CD has them in the studio for
"How High the Moon," while CD number four features the alternate drummers from 1965-1966, with marked sound improvement, doing great versions of
"Pennies from Heaven," "In a Mellotone," and particularly a rousing version of
"Sunday." There are recordings from
Stampen in Stockholm with several different mixes of American and European rhythm sections, especially 1971 where
Sjoesten, bassist
Red Mitchell, and drummer
Fredrik Noren appear, with
Ericson and
Noren in a quintet from 1969 -- check out their take of
"C Jam Blues." The sixth CD has these sides from
Stampen as well as Ahus, the precious
Clark Terry features including
"Satin Doll" and the light blues stomp
"Things Ain't What They Used to Be." The Ahus recordings with
Wilson,
Ryskog, and drummer
Ed Thigpen are a bit unsure and tentative. True standout recordings are with
Dexter Gordon on CDs five and seven doing
Duke Ellington's music in the studio, or jamming at
the Monmartre. There are four versions of
"Perdido" in the box, the best with
Gordon and pianist
Thomas Clausen's trio in Flensbourg, Germany; another four of
"Cotton Tail," one with big band and strings; three of
"Our Love Is Here to Stay"; and several
"The Theme" set closers, one at over five minutes. The worst recordings are with the
Steen Vig band from 1966, muffled and distant, especially from the guest star/lead horn.
The accompanying booklet, with many photos and historical information, notes, and quotes, is priceless. It speaks of
Webster's fear of flying and other quirks, his hobbies (there's a great photo of
Webster shooting billiards), the abject reverence other musicians had for him, and his status as "the hidden king of jazz" in the later years of his life. While not essential or definitive, this box is certainly worth the price, as each CD has nearly 80 minutes of music, and is an item completist fans of
Webster will surely want. ~ Michael G. Nastos
