I Dare You to Listen to Both Volumes of "TV Action Jazz" by Mundell Lowe

[Teasing the Korean]

C'mon.  I dare ya, 

[jlhoots]

I'll try!!

[JSngry]

[sgcim]

W

3 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

C'mon.  I dare ya, 

What. there's a second one besides the one with Tony Scott, Eddie Costa, etc...?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

YES ITS CALLED MORE TV ACTION JAZZ

[Teasing the Korean]

45 minutes ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

YES ITS CALLED MORE TV ACTION JAZZ

[sgcim]

I took the dare!

The sequel album has better arrangements than the first one, which was largely unison and octave writing with some interesting counter melodies, but the first one is my fave because everyone gets enough solo time to do their thing.

ML had a tentet to work with in the second one, so he could use more harmony in the parts, but most of the tunes were under three minutes, so the players got one or two choruses at most, with ML getting the lion's share of the solo work.

The first album had more high points, with outstanding solos by each player on their feature. Donald Byrd played a fine solo on his feature, Jimmy Cleveland played a smokin' high octave solo on his thing, Costa got a chance to do his great octaves and percussive thing, and of course, Tony Scott went into his Ben Webster bag for "Riff Blues" (Mike Hammer theme) and stole the entire show. Herbie Mann was just there, as usual. Mundy was much more bluesy on this one, and the rhythm section was fine.

The second album had no real high points, other than Mundell's much more swinging solos than on the first album. Scott was replaced by a fine studio musician, who was never known for anything special as far as jazz improvisation was concerned. Byrd was replaced by CT, who played fine as usual, but never got enough time to really take off, as shown by his ending one short solo with a fantastic double time figure, as if to say, "This is what I could've been doing, but Camden wanted to cut the solo time, and I'm sticking this in to show you what you missed". Costa had his hands tied on this also, with no time to do his thing.

They're both good albums, but I prefer the first one.

[DMP]

Two of my first LP purchases as a kid, my introduction to many of the great New York musicians at the time, and I still play them. Lowe might have been the “leader,” but I heard him as more of a participant. (I also bought Buddy Morrow’s “Double Impact,” a mediocre sequel to his mediocre “Impact” - the era of television theme albums.) (Harry Betts’ “The Jazz Soul of Dr.  Kildare” - nothing special, but Jack Sheldon had a beautiful sound.)

Edited September 29, 2020 by DMP
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