Frank Rosolino

The debut as a leader, and Rosolino comes out swinging with a confidence that borders on recklessness. Bill Holman's arrangements are lean and quick, built to showcase the trombone's agility rather than bury it in section writing. Charlie Mariano is the perfect foil: his alto has a tart, almost aggressive edge that pushes Rosolino to respond with even more velocity.

The rhythm section is superb. Walter Norris comps with a light touch that gives Rosolino all the room he needs, and Stan Levey, who could drum behind anyone from Parker to Gillespie, keeps the time moving without ever cluttering the space. Max Bennett's bass lines are steady and unshowy, exactly what this music requires.

If there is a limitation, it is the recording itself: Capitol's 1955 sound is clean but a little flat, without the depth that Blue Note or Prestige were getting from Rudy Van Gelder at the same time. But the playing is too good to care. This is a quintet album that plays like a manifesto.

The quartet format strips everything back to essentials, and what you find is that Rosolino does not need a frontline partner at all. Without another horn to share the melodic duties, every idea has to come from the trombone, and the ideas come in torrents. The technical facility is staggering: runs that most players would attempt on valve trombone, Rosolino executes on a conventional slide instrument with casual precision.

Sonny Clark, two years before his Blue Note debut, is already the pianist you recognize from Cool Struttin': economical, harmonically acute, with a touch that is both delicate and swinging. His comping behind Rosolino is a masterclass in listening, and his solos are models of concise invention.

Wilfred Middlebrooks and Stan Levey supply a rhythm section so dependable it becomes invisible, which is the highest compliment you can pay a bass-and-drums team. The whole album has the ease of a late-night club set where everyone knows the tunes and the only goal is to play well. It sounds effortless, which is the surest sign that it was not.

Later reissued under the title The Legend of Frank Rosolino, and the reissue title is not an exaggeration. This is Rosolino at the peak of his West Coast period, paired with Richie Kamuca's warm, Lester Young-influenced tenor in a quintet that plays with the cohesion of a working band even though it was assembled for the studio.

Vince Guaraldi, years before "Linus and Lucy" would make him famous in another context entirely, is a revelation: his solos are fleet and inventive, with none of the prettiness that would later define his popular work. He plays like a hard bop pianist who happens to live in California, which is essentially what he was. Monty Budwig and Stan Levey form a rhythm section that swings without strain.

The interplay between Rosolino and Kamuca is the album's secret weapon. Kamuca's tenor has a soft, breathy quality that contrasts perfectly with the trombone's brassy attack, and their exchanges on the up-tempo numbers have the quality of a conversation between two musicians who genuinely enjoy each other's company. Mode was a small label and this record never got the distribution it deserved, but the music is first-rate.

The oddity in the discography, and the one that divides opinion. Frank Sinatra's Reprise label was interested in Rosolino as an entertainer, not just an instrumentalist, and the result is an album that splits its time between serious quartet jazz and Rosolino's scat singing. The vocal numbers have a genial, slightly corny charm; the instrumental tracks are excellent.

Victor Feldman is magnificent throughout, bringing the same harmonic sophistication he would bring to Miles Davis's Seven Steps to Heaven two years later. His accompaniment lifts the weaker material, and on the purely instrumental tracks his interplay with Rosolino is on par with anything on the earlier records. Chuck Berghofer's bass is solid and swinging, and Irv Cottler, better known as Sinatra's studio drummer, turns out to be an understated and effective jazz timekeeper.

The album suffers from its commercial ambitions, but the playing on the straight-ahead tracks is too good to dismiss. Rosolino's tone is richer and darker than on the earlier records, suggesting a maturity that the novelty vocal numbers occasionally undercut. A mixed bag, but the highs are genuine.

Twelve years between studio dates as a leader, and Rosolino returns in the most unlikely setting: a small Roman studio with Italian musicians he had never recorded with before. The result is a revelation. The 1970s Rosolino is a different player from the 1950s model: the speed is still there, but there is a darker harmonic sense, a willingness to sit inside a phrase and let it breathe rather than racing through it.

Franco D'Andrea is a superb accompanist, with a touch that draws equally on Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner. His comping has a harmonic richness that the West Coast rhythm sections rarely provided, and it pulls new colors from Rosolino's playing. Bruno Tommaso and Bruno Biriaco are a tight, responsive rhythm section. The guest appearances by Enrico Pieranunzi on piano and Gianni Basso on tenor add variety without disrupting the session's intimate feel.

Horo was one of the finest Italian jazz labels of the 1970s, and this session captures Rosolino in a European context where the emphasis falls on lyricism and harmonic exploration rather than pure virtuosity. The result is one of the most complete statements of his musical personality on record.

Two Italian-American brass players from the West Coast scene, reconnecting in Italy with a crack rhythm section of local musicians. Conte Candoli's trumpet is bright and clean, a perfect complement to Rosolino's broader, more vocal trombone sound, and the two play off each other with the ease of men who had been sharing bandstands since the Kenton Orchestra days.

Franco D'Andrea returns from the Jazz a Confronto session, and he is even better here: his solos have a searching quality, probing chord changes with the patience of a European player and the swing of an American one. Giovanni Tommaso and Gegè Munari form a rhythm section that is both propulsive and sensitive, adjusting to the dynamic shifts between the two horns with professional ease.

The album's charm lies in its informality. There is no sense of two veterans trying to prove anything; they are simply playing the music they love with musicians who respond to every nuance. The Italian rhythm section brings a slightly different rhythmic feel from what Rosolino was accustomed to in Los Angeles, and the result is music that sounds familiar and fresh at the same time.

The live sequel to Conversation, recorded at the Domicile in Munich with a European rhythm section and the energy that only a club audience can generate. MPS captured the sound beautifully: the room is present without being overwhelming, and the balance between the two horns is exemplary.

The set list is standards, which is where Rosolino and Candoli are most comfortable. "Just Friends," "There Will Never Be Another You," and "Stella by Starlight" get treatments that are respectful of the melodies but completely uninhibited in the solos. Rosolino's extended solo on the title track is one of the finest things he ever committed to tape: it builds from a whisper to a full-throated climax over several choruses, each one raising the stakes without ever losing melodic coherence.

Rob Pronk is a capable pianist whose comping stays out of the way while offering harmonic support where needed. Isla Eckinger's bass is warm and reliable, and Todd Canedy drives the band with a firm, uncluttered beat. The audience is audible between numbers, and their enthusiasm is earned. A fine live document from two masters of their instruments.

Recorded live in Toronto in 1976 but not released until 1984, this is the great lost Rosolino album. Ed Bickert's guitar takes the place of piano, and the change in texture is transformative. Bickert's quiet, harmonically sophisticated playing creates a bed of sound that is more open than any piano accompaniment, and Rosolino responds by playing with a tenderness and restraint that the earlier records only hinted at.

Don Thompson and Terry Clarke are the Canadian rhythm section that every visiting American wanted to play with, and it is easy to hear why. Thompson's bass lines are melodic and supportive without being intrusive, and Clarke's brushwork on the ballads is some of the most sensitive drumming you will hear behind a trombone. The quartet sound is intimate and conversational, perfectly suited to the Bourbon Street club setting.

The ballad playing here is Rosolino at his absolute peak. The fast numbers still have the trademark velocity, but it is the slow material that stays with you: long, singing phrases delivered with a tone that is rich and almost vocal, as though the trombone were telling you something it could only say in private. An essential record, and a reminder that the best jazz does not always come from the most famous studios.

Recorded in 1958 but shelved for nearly three decades, this is one of the great lost West Coast sessions. Harold Land's tenor saxophone brings a harder, more muscular sound than Charlie Mariano's alto on the debut, and the combination of Rosolino and Land is irresistible: two of the most technically accomplished players on the West Coast, pushing each other to play harder and faster.

Victor Feldman returns from the Turn Me Loose! session (or rather, he precedes it: this was recorded three years earlier), and his playing here is even more impressive. Leroy Vinnegar's walking bass lines are the definition of swing, and Stan Levey, appearing on his fourth Rosolino album, remains the ideal drummer for this music: solid, versatile, and never in the way.

David Axelrod produced the session, years before his own career as a composer and arranger would take off. The sound is excellent for a 1958 date: clear separation between the instruments, a warm room tone, and enough presence on the horns to capture every detail of the articulation. Why Specialty shelved this record is a mystery; what they had was a quintet session that could stand alongside anything on Contemporary or Pacific Jazz.

Recorded at Gold Star Studio A in Los Angeles in 1978 and not released until 2006, twenty-eight years after the session and twenty-eight years after Rosolino's death. The title is literal: this was the last time Frank Rosolino recorded in a studio. The trombone sounds magnificent, with a depth and warmth of tone that surpasses everything on the earlier records. Part of this is the man, who at fifty-two had decades of playing and living in his sound; part of it is the use of a multivider electronic device that adds subtle richness to the trombone's natural resonance.

Larry Willis is a superb pianist, and his harmonic vocabulary is broader and more modern than any of Rosolino's previous accompanists. Billy Higgins, one of the most recorded drummers in jazz history, plays with his characteristic warmth and sensitivity, and Kevan Brandon's bass completes a rhythm section that is both supportive and stimulating.

There is no way to listen to this album without knowing what came after. Frank Rosolino died on November 26, 1978, in a tragedy that devastated the jazz community. The music on this record does not sound like a farewell; it sounds like a beginning, like a player who had found new things to explore and was excited about where they would lead. That contrast between the vitality of the music and the finality of the circumstances makes this one of the most affecting records in the catalog. Listen to it for the playing, which is extraordinary. The context will take care of itself.