Sunday Music Muse Day - Johnny Hodges with Sam Woodyard, Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker

This Sunday Music Muse Day finds me enjoying and celebrating a pair of 2-CD sets of  legendary jazz saxophonists.  First up is Johnny Hodges at Sportpalast, Berlin, a 2 CD live set recored in Berlin, Germany in march 1961.  Hodges uses fellow band mates of the Ellington Orchestra, including my father, Sam Woodyard, on drums.  This CD set was produced by famed produce Norman Granz who handled the European tour of this group, while Duke had gone Paris to work on the movie, Paris Blues, with Billy Strayhorn. It sounds like it was a win-win for everybody.  Most of the tunes are associated with the Ellington playlist, as to be expected.  It's always fun for me to find Sam on other jazz outings.  I think of this as collecting a nice music legacy for my kids.

Next is baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan Quartet, the original quartet with Chet Baker.  This collection of cuts recorded in the early 1950s is giving me a education in the West Coast Jazz style of the era.  It definitely has a more laid back feel than the East Coast style of artists like Miles Davis, and the Bebop of Dizzy Gillespie.  It's  alway fun to discovery the gems of the past in jazz made before I got into it in the 1970s.

Two sets double CDs, I'm looking forward to enjoying for a long time.  Cheers.