Bob Brookmeyer

The portrait that emerges from this disc reveals a trombonist with excellent technique, a smooth, pungent percussive wit, dark and buttery tone, down home stomping and slyly musical humor; a pianist who ranges from a basic, solid, four-square attack to a delightfully airy way; a composer who is strongly conscious of the foundations of jazz; and an arranger who mainly writes with a heavy emphasis on a rolling swing, and occasionally blending it with impressionistic devices, but always with strength and simplicity.

In a revealing insight, Nat Hentoff considered that “Brookmeyer has opened himself to jazz of all eras. He has absorbed, tested, and selected from the whole reservoir of autobiographies in sound that is the jazz language, those elements he felt relevant to his own experience in living and telling his history of jazz. He has not limited himself to any one era, school or attitude, preferring to filter all of jazz through his emotions rather than remain a parochial hipster.”

(1 & 8] Portrait Artist: (Atlantic LP/SD1320)

Marky Markowitz, Ray Copeland (tp), Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb,p, arr), Frank Rehak (tb), John Barrows (fhr), Bill Barber (tu), Gene Quill (as), Gene Allen (bs, ts) ,George Duvivier (b), Charlie Persip (d).
New March 9, 1959.

[9 & 10] Jazz Is Kick (Mercury MG20600):
Thad Jones, Joe Newman (tp) Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb) Curtis Fuller (tb) Hank Jones (p) Jones (b) Charlie Persip (d)
New York, June, 1960.

Tracks: 01. Out of Nowhere, 02. Darn that Dream, 03. Blues Suite: Introduction and First Movement, 04. Second Movement, 05. Third Movement, 06. Fourth Movement, 07. Mellow Drama, 08. It Don’t Mean a Thing (If Ain’t Got that Swing), 09. Air Conditioned, 10. This Can’t Be Love, 11. Exactly Like 12. Things I Love, 13. Only when Near, 14. Green Stamps, 15. My Everything, 16. Co-Operation