Lee Konitz, Miles Davis et al - Conception (1956 compilation, rec. 1949-51)

R.I.P. Lee Konitz, 13 October 1927 - 15 April 2020

The legendary saxophonist Lee Konitz has died at the age of 92, from Covid-related pneumonia.  He was the last surviving member of Miles Davis' Birth Of The Cool band, and had a storied career in his own right as a distinctive, melodic player and improviser.

This great collection was issued by Prestige in 1956 to bring together some 78rpm sides and material from 10" LPs.  The first six tracks in fact are the entirety of "The New Sounds" by "Lee Konitz featuring Miles Davis", a 10" released in 1951.  All of it essential early cool jazz and bop.

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Hank Mobley - Soul Station (1960)

Superior Blue Note session from February 1960.  I reckoned this would round out a week of otherwise avant-garde music quite nicely as it's just so much good clean fun: Hank Mobley, the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone" (jazz writer Leonard Feather) might not have reshaped postwar jazz as dramatically as Davis, Coltrane et al, but he could write a clutch of neat tunes and turn out a superb record that sounds fresh as a daisy when it's about to turn 60 years old.

Soul Station is bookended by two great covers, Irving Berlin's Remember and the Rainger/Robin movie song If I Should Lose You, with the four Mobley originals in between carrying the same breezy melodiousness and adding up to an album without a single weak spot.  The more I listen to Soul Station (about three times a week on average whenever I dig it out, like this month), the more I appreciate Paul Chambers and Art Blakey as a superb rhythm section, Wyn Kelly as an underrated pianist, and every spirits-lifting line from Mobley. Just dig dis.

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