JAZZ.FM91 - Canada's Premier Jazz Station

In rereading producer Orrin Keepnews' superb book, The View From Within, a collection of his jazz writings and recollections over the years, I came across the following passage on Bill Evans and the recording of Explorations. I've often posted that the years between 1959 and 1965 represent my favorite Bill Evans period, with Explorations being among my favorite recording, primarily for its poetic ideas and bounce.

Whenever a jazz artist is packaged on an album as joining, meeting or leading a "sax section," I'm instantly hooked. In every case, the result is exciting, since no one in his right mind would be paired with a sax section unless the results and collective talent were sterling. Examples of this approach that come to mind include Al Cohn and the Sax Section (1956), Coleman  Hawkins Meets the Saxophone Section (1958) and That's Right: Nat Adderley and the Big Sax Section (1960). Then, of course, there was Supersax, starting in 1972, playing dense-packed arrangements of Charlie Parker solos. I recently discovered another album in this category that, like the other sax summit efforts, is terrific: Bud Shank and the Sax Section (1968).

Herman Leonard, a photographer with a commanding mastery of light whose dramatic and expressive nightclub portraits of jazz artists starting in the 1940s helped shape and promote jazz's nocturnal image and mystique, died on August 14 in Los Angeles. He was 87. [All photos by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]