The Harry Allen Quartet - Blue Skies

Styles: Saxophone Jazz
Year: 1994
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 66:57
Size: 153,7 MB
Art: Front

(7:00)  1. Linger Awhile
(6:20)  2. I Didn't Know What Time It Was
(5:35)  3. What Are you Doing The Rest Of Your Life?
(5:45)  4. Hummin' Along
(9:11)  5. How Insensitive
(6:00)  6. Nobody Else But Me
(4:40)  7. Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year
(6:40)  8. Shine
(5:17)  9. Why Must You Go?
(6:47) 10. Carolyn's Kitchen/Blue Skies
(3:36) 11. The September Of My Years

11 cuts over 67 minutes in which Allen (tenor sax) and company (John Bunch, piano; Dennis Irwin, bass; Duffy Jackson, drums) lay out gently on a collection of ballads, including a couple from Allen himself. The recording is live to two-track analog tape, and sounds beautiful indeed  producer/engineer John Marks even recommends using a sound pressure meter to properly set playback volumes to match the original performance. This is an old-fashioned album, very much a clubland toe-tapper Allen is pictured on the front cover against a city skyline, dressed in an outfit that wouldn't have been out of place in 1958. It's a lot of cheerful fun, with some actual humorous playing on a couple of tracks Allen's soloing on "Nobody Else But Me" is genuinely funny, almost a send-up of the upside-down-and-backwards school of virtuoso playing. Good stuff, overall. Yes, there are the standard drum and bass solos, and the usual equal time for the piano, but this is kept relatively polite, leaving the main field for Allen's smoky tenor sax. ~ Steven McDonald  http://www.allmusic.com/album/blue-skies-mw0000615642

The Harry Allen Quartet: Harry Allen (tenor saxophone); John Bunch (piano); Dennis Irwin (bass); Duffy Jackson (drums).

Blue Skies

---