ZOOT SIMS: plays Duke Ellington - Passion Flower

ZOOT SIMS
Um dos expoentes do sax tenor no jazz, ZOOT SIMS forjou seu próprio estilo e pavimentou seu caminho sozinho: nunca frequentou escolas de música e aprendeu ouvindo os seus heróis: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster. O polimento veio com a experiência de tocar em grandes formações - Benny Goodman, Woody Hermann e Stan Kenton. A passagem pela banda de Kenton e a convivência com Gerry Mulligan amansaram seu estilo, razão pela qual ele se insere entre os grandes nomes do Jazz West Coast.
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ZOOT SIMS
John Haley “Zoot” Sims has been one of the most remarkable tenor saxophonists in jazz over the last thirty years, remarkable for the complete lack of affectation in his music, the resilience of his style, and the uncanny relaxation with which he expresses it. “He is one of the great jazz players of the world,” writes British jazz critic Benny Green. Zoot, who hails from Inglewood, California (South of Los
Angeles, right by the airport), was the youngest of six boys and one girl. His parents, who constantly traveled, were both in vaudeville and were known as Pete & Kate. Ironically enough, he’s a self-taught genius never having formally studied his chosen instrument. Zoot learned the saxophone by listening to Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Chu Berry, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Don Byas. He quit high school in the first year and immediately joined a Los Angeles Band called Ken Baker, later touring with Bobby Sherwood. Zoot first rose to prominence as part of the saxophone section of the second Woody Herman Herd of the late Forties, the one that upset all conventional ideas of instrumentation by having one alto, three tenors, and a baritone. Sims, in company with Stan Getz (who already had a stellar reputation as an instrumentalist) and Herbie Stewart (who was later replaced by Al Cohn), produced what came to be known as the “Four Brothers” sound, a term to denote the methods of tone production, phrasing, and vibrato control used by a section steeped in the precepts of Lester Young, rather than those of the classical hot players like, say, Coleman Hawkins. Sim’s total involvement with the Woody Herman sax section put him on the map as a leading figure on his instrument. Earlier Zoot Sims had played with Benny Goodman in 1944 and 1946, with a two-year Army stretch sandwiched in between. After leaving the Goodman Band he joined the Bill Harris Sextet at Cafe Society Uptown in New York, also in 1946. Ever since the old Woody Herman days, Zoot has maintained a status as a soloist who performs with all manner of small groups, touring Europe and the United States with magnets like Benny Goodman, Gerry Mulligan (the experimental sextet and the staid concert band), and Stan Kenton, this during
the Fifties and Sixties. Even in the Seventies he continually roams the world as a leader and sometimes as a sideman, slowly building a reputation as a swinging tenor saxophonist. If at first his reputation seemed to be overshadowed by better-publicized contemporaries, as the years have gone by his status as a committed player of ferocious integrity has loomed steadily larger. Says Sims of his own work, “What interests me is music that sounds and feels good. If it doesn’t warm my ear, forget it.” There have been a great many distinguished episodes in his career, probably the best remembered being his series of beautifully balanced duets with Al
Cohn in a duo that still functions, and more recently his records with basic small groups. Although loosely regarded as a modernist, much of his aesthetic has its roots in Lester Young’s pre-bebop style, and close textual examination of an album like Down Home, which is composed entirely of themes venerable enough to be described as Dixieland, confirms this. Sims, as he himself suggests, is a compound sound of Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Lester Young, and Ben Webster. “Sims, it seems to me, is one of the great jazz musicians of his era. His style can only be described as beautiful. He is one of the least cluttered soloists alive, every note being executed in a bold, clear tone, and every phrase being utterly right in its context. Above all, there is the rhythmic exhilaration of his playing,” Benny Green writes in Drums in My Ears. Zoot Sims is an exemplar of the natural jazz musicians, or—what they used to call in the Twenties—a “playing fool.” Zoot Sims died March 23, 1985.
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ALBUM REVIEW
From his 1940s work with Benny Goodman and Woody Herman until his death in 1985, tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims was the quintessential jazz musician. He always kept an enthusiastic commitment to improvising and a profound allegiance to the rhythmic art
of swing. On this 1979 date he and a big band play distinctive Ellington orchestrations written by Benny Carter, who, like Ellington, helped architect the Swing Era. Here Sims's melodic and evocative tenor mingles the lightness of Lester Young with some of the richly grained sound of Ben Webster, and his performances of Billy Strayhorn's lush "Passion Flower" and Duke's "I've Got It Bad (And That
Ain't Good)" are especially moving. The band is sprinkled with outstanding veterans, including saxophonists Buddy Collette and Marshall Royal, trombonists J.J. Johnson and Grover Mitchell, and the superb pianist Jimmy Rowles. Together they pump fresh and distinctive life into a vision of Ellington's music that includes the spontaneous, the romantic, and the orchestral.
~ Stuart Broomer - amazon.com
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MINHA OPINIÃO: Zoot Sims, embora oriundo de bandas do "swing", se tornou um dos grandes nomes do "West Coast Jazz" (como se pode constatar na Coletânea de Jazz West Coast, postada no blog). Em sua fase WCJ, Zoot chegou a ser considerado por alguns jazzófilos como uma espécie de "alter ego" de Stan Getz - o que é muito natural: ambos foram componentes da legendária secção de saxes de Woody Hermann - os "Four Brothers". Realmente, em algumas gravações, é bastanta grande a semelhança da sonoridade e do fraseado dos dois gigantes do sax tenor. Mas se você prestar atenção, vai verificar que Zoot tinha um estoque frases bastante peculiares e particularíssimas - uma espécie de impressão digital. O arranjador deste álbum foi Benny Carter, num momento de pouco inspiração. Os arranjos são datados e nítidamente calcados no estilo de Count Basie. (Ainda bem...não ia ter a menor graça copiar os originais de Ellington). Benny Carter era limitado como arranjador e - ainda que tivesse tivesse uma longa experiência nesse ofício - essa não era, definitivamente, a sua praia; seu negócio era tocar, como gente grande, o seu saxofone alto: aí sim, BC foi um monstro sagrado. De qualquer forma, ainda que óbvios, os arranjos emolduram corretamente a performance de Zoot Sims. Mas, querem saber? Para o meu gosto, prefiro o "Zoot-sabor-West Coast", mais elegante, classudo e contido, consequencia de sua passagem pela banda de Stan Kenton e pela convivência com Gerry Mulligan.

(*) A banda é um verdadeiro "dream team": só tem cracaços!
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ZOOT SIMS: plays Duke Ellington - Passion Flower

PERSONNEL:
Zoot Sims (tenor saxophone)
John Collins (guitar)
Frank Wess (flute, alto saxophone)
Marshall Royal (alto saxophone)
Plas Johnson , Buddy Collette (tenor saxophone)
Oscar Brashear, Al Aarons, Earl Gardner, Bobby Bryant (trumpet)
Grover Mitchell , J.J. Johnson , Benny Powell, Britt Woodman (trombone)
Jimmy Rowles (piano)
Grady Tate, John Clay, Shelly Manne (drums).
Andy Simpkins (bass)

ARRANGEMENTS by Benny Carter

TRACKS/FAIXAS:
1. It Don't Mean A Thing
2. In A Mellow Tone
3. I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)
4. I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart
5. Black Butterfly
6. Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me
7. Your Love Has Faded
8. Bojangles
9. Passion Flower