Zoot Sims

Zoot was twenty-four years old and in Paris with the Benny Goodman band when he slipped into a studio with three of the best musicians on the Continent. Kenny Clarke was in Paris at the time, six years before he would settle there permanently, and Pierre Michelot was the finest bassist in European jazz. Gerry Wiggins, the Los Angeles pianist touring with Goodman, brought a light, swinging touch that suited Zoot's approach perfectly.

The playing is relaxed and confident in the way that only small-group jazz recorded in a single afternoon can be. Zoot's tone is already fully formed: big, warm, slightly breathy on the ballads, with that unmistakable ease in the upper register. He phrases like a singer, never rushing, always landing on the beat with a casual precision that makes everything sound inevitable.

Clarke's brushwork is exquisite throughout, and the rhythm section gives Sims exactly the kind of buoyant, uncluttered support he always thrived on. Four stars for an early document that reveals the mature artist already in place.

Art Blakey on a Zoot Sims date is not the combination you expect, but it works beautifully. Blakey dials back his usual intensity and plays with a loose, propulsive swing that pushes Sims without overwhelming him. The contrast between Blakey's hard-bop instincts and Zoot's cool-school phrasing creates a productive tension that runs through every track.

Harry Biss and Clyde Lombardi form an unassuming rhythm section that stays out of the way when Zoot is building a solo and fills the spaces when he pauses for breath. The repertoire is all standards, played with the kind of direct, no-frills approach that defined the early Prestige catalog: one take, minimal rehearsal, maximum swing.

The tempos are mostly medium, which is where Zoot was always at his best. He could play fast, but he never felt the need to prove it. Four stars for an unpretentious blowing session that delivers exactly what the title promises.

A compilation LP assembling material from two separate quartet sessions recorded a year apart. The earlier date features John Lewis on piano, bringing the same spare, blues-inflected elegance he would refine with the Modern Jazz Quartet. The later session is the Swinging with Zoot band with Biss and Blakey. Together, the two sessions make for a cohesive listen because Zoot himself is the constant, and his sound is unmistakable regardless of context.

The Lewis tracks are slightly more deliberate, with the pianist's careful voicings drawing out a more reflective side of Sims's playing. The Biss/Blakey tracks are looser and more driving. Don Lamond's drumming on the 1950 date has a Woody Herman big-band swing feel that suits the material perfectly.

Four stars for a compilation that works as a single statement despite its split origins. Every track swings, every solo tells a story, and nothing overstays its welcome.

A three-way co-led date that pairs Zoot with fellow Lester Young disciple Brew Moore and guitarist Chuck Wayne. The two tenors have a similar lineage but distinct voices: Sims is warmer and more relaxed, Moore slightly edgier and more angular. Wayne's guitar provides a different texture from the usual piano-led format, and the interplay between the three front-line voices keeps the arrangements fresh.

Harvey Leonard and George Duvivier are steady and supportive, and Ed Shaughnessy's drumming has a crisp swing feel that propels the medium-tempo tracks without getting heavy. The material is a mix of standards and originals, all played with the collegial ease of musicians who speak the same language.

Three stars. It is a pleasant, well-played session that never quite catches fire the way Zoot's best small-group dates do. The co-leadership spreads the solo space thin, and no single player gets enough room to build the kind of extended, storytelling solos that define Sims at his peak.

This is the first great Zoot Sims record. Bob Brookmeyer's valve trombone is the ideal foil for Zoot's tenor: both instruments share a warm, vocal quality, and both players approach improvisation with the same melodic logic. When they trade fours, the conversation has a naturalness that studio sessions rarely achieve. You can hear two musicians listening to each other with genuine pleasure.

Milt Hinton and Gus Johnson are the kind of rhythm section that makes everything sound easy. Hinton's bass lines are rock-solid and swinging, Johnson's brushwork is feather-light, and John Williams comps with an understated elegance that gives the soloists all the space they need. The Dawn label was a minor operation, and this record was overlooked at the time, but it holds up as one of the finest quintet sessions of the mid-fifties.

Five stars. Every track is a small gem, the sound quality is excellent for the era, and the rapport between Sims and Brookmeyer is a joy to hear. This is the record that proved Zoot could carry a full LP as a leader.

The Riverside debut is a revelation. George Handy's arrangements give the quintet a distinctive character: they are tight and inventive without being fussy, creating frameworks that enhance the soloists rather than constraining them. Nick Travis plays with a clean, bright tone that contrasts beautifully with Zoot's darker saxophone sound, and the two share a rhythmic sensibility that makes the ensemble passages sparkle.

Wilbur Ware is one of the most distinctive bassists in jazz history, and his playing here is characteristically bold: big, woody notes placed with an unerring sense of time, occasionally dropping in unexpected harmonic substitutions that give the soloists fresh angles to explore. Osie Johnson swings hard at every tempo.

Zoot plays some alto here too, and while his alto work lacks the distinctive gravity of his tenor, it reveals a different side of his musicianship. Five stars for a record that belongs in any serious collection of 1950s mainstream jazz.

The most famous partnership in Zoot's career, and one of the great two-tenor pairings in jazz. Al Cohn and Zoot Sims had been friends since their days in the Woody Herman Second Herd, and their musical rapport was so deep that they could finish each other's phrases. On this first co-led studio date, that chemistry is fully audible. They blend, they contrast, they push each other into ideas neither would have found alone.

Mose Allison brings a slightly bluesy, slightly Southern sensibility to the piano chair that distinguishes this rhythm section from the typical New York studio group. Teddy Kotick, a veteran of Charlie Parker's groups, provides the kind of steady, intelligent bass lines that keep everything anchored. Both tenor players double on clarinet, and the clarinet passages have a warmth and informality that adds variety to the program.

Five stars. This is the record to start with if you want to understand what the Cohn-Sims partnership was about: mutual respect, shared language, and an absolute commitment to swinging.

Dave McKenna is one of the great underrated pianists in jazz, and his pairing with Zoot is inspired. McKenna's big, two-handed approach fills out the quartet sound in a way that many pianists cannot manage, and his comping has a rolling, orchestral quality that gives Sims a rich harmonic carpet to work over. George Tucker's bass is deep and propulsive, and Dannie Richmond (best known for his work with Charles Mingus) proves he can swing in a straight-ahead context with the same intensity he brought to Mingus's more adventurous music.

The repertoire is well-chosen standards, played at tempos that allow everyone room to stretch. Zoot's solo on the title track is a masterclass in melodic development: he starts simple, builds logically, and reaches a climax that feels earned rather than forced. There is a bluesy undercurrent to the whole session that justifies the album title.

Five stars. One of the finest quartet records of 1960, and a strong contender for the best thing Zoot ever recorded in a small-group setting.

A pianoless date with two of the finest jazz guitarists of the era. Jimmy Raney and Jim Hall approach the instrument from different angles: Raney is the bop-rooted player with a quick, fluid single-note style, while Hall is more harmonically adventurous and texturally varied. Together they create a shifting, translucent accompaniment for Zoot that has a character quite unlike the usual piano-bass-drums trio.

Steve Swallow's bass anchors the group with quiet authority, and Osie Johnson keeps time with the kind of relaxed precision that this delicate instrumentation demands. The absence of a piano opens up the harmonic space in interesting ways, giving Zoot room to explore chord substitutions and melodic ideas that might feel crowded in a more conventional setting.

Four stars. The unusual instrumentation makes this a distinctive entry in the Sims catalog, and the interplay between the three front-line voices is consistently absorbing. It does not quite reach the heights of Down Home or Al and Zoot, but it offers something different and valuable.

The Impulse! with-strings record, arranged by Gary McFarland and recorded in London. McFarland was one of the most inventive arrangers of the sixties, and his settings for Zoot avoid the saccharine quality that plagues most saxophone-with-strings albums. The orchestrations are angular and surprising, with unusual voicings in the French horns and a harp that adds glinting color rather than schmaltz.

Zoot sings on a couple of tracks, and his voice has the same unaffected, slightly grainy quality as his tenor playing. The singing is not the point of the record, but it adds variety and reveals the same melodic instinct that drives his saxophone solos. The London musicians play McFarland's charts with precision and feeling.

Four stars. Not the raw blowing session that Zoot fans typically prefer, but a beautifully crafted orchestral statement that shows a different side of his artistry.

Sixteen years after Al and Zoot, the partnership had only deepened. Jaki Byard is the wild card in this rhythm section: his encyclopedic knowledge of jazz piano styles, from stride to free, means that the comping is never predictable. He can match the two tenors' swing feel effortlessly, but he also drops in harmonic surprises that keep everyone on their toes. Mel Lewis on drums and George Duvivier on bass provide the kind of rock-solid foundation that allows Byard's adventurous comping to work without destabilizing the group.

Zoot plays some soprano saxophone here alongside his tenor, and his soprano tone is characteristically warm and centered, avoiding the nasal quality that some players produce on the instrument. The title track is a highlight: both tenors take extended solos that build with a patience and logic that only mature artists can manage.

Five stars. The best of the Cohn-Sims reunion records, with a rhythm section that pushes the two-tenor format into fresh territory.

Producer Harry Lim assembled an all-star rhythm section for this Famous Door date, and the results are predictably beautiful. Hank Jones is one of the most elegant pianists who ever lived, and his accompaniment has a luminous, singing quality that brings out the best in Zoot's ballad playing. Milt Hinton, appearing here for the second time in Zoot's discography, is once again the perfect anchor.

The split drum chair between Louie Bellson and Grady Tate gives the two sessions slightly different characters: Bellson is more explosive and accented, Tate more laid-back and groove-oriented. Both are perfectly suited to the material. The soprano saxophone tracks are a nice change of pace, though Zoot's tenor remains his primary voice.

Four stars. A consistently enjoyable mainstream session that benefits enormously from the caliber of the rhythm section. The title is accurate: this is the sound of a musician completely at ease with himself and his art.

A European tour date recorded in Sweden with a Scandinavian rhythm section and Horace Parlan on piano. Parlan, the American expatriate who had settled in Copenhagen, brings a distinctive, percussive touch to the piano chair that sets this apart from the typical Cohn-Sims studio date. His partially paralyzed right hand (the result of childhood polio) gave him a left-hand-dominant style that was rhythmically powerful and harmonically inventive.

Hugo Rasmussen and Sven Erik Norregaard were stalwarts of the Copenhagen jazz scene, and they play with the relaxed authority of musicians accustomed to accompanying visiting Americans. The two tenors are in fine form, trading solos and riffs with the easy familiarity of old friends on a working tour.

Four stars. A solid entry in the Cohn-Sims catalog that benefits from the freshness of an unfamiliar rhythm section. Tour dates like this often have a spontaneity that studio sessions lack, and this one captures that quality nicely.

Norman Granz paired Zoot with Oscar Peterson's working group for a program of Gershwin standards, and the result is one of the great Pablo releases. Peterson and Pass create a harmonic accompaniment of extraordinary richness: the piano's full-spectrum voicings and the guitar's warm chordal fills surround Sims's tenor in a cushion of sound that brings out his most lyrical playing.

The Gershwin material is ideally suited to Zoot's melodic sensibility. These are songs built on strong, singable melodies and sophisticated harmonies, and Sims treats them with the respect they deserve, never straying so far from the melody that the song is lost, but always finding fresh angles and unexpected turns. George Mraz's bass is immaculate, and Grady Tate's drumming has the quiet intensity of a master accompanist.

Five stars. This is one of the essential jazz recordings of the 1970s and the finest songbook album in Zoot Sims's discography. Every track is a small masterpiece of taste and swing.

An entire album on soprano saxophone, and Zoot brings the same warm, centered tone to the smaller horn that he always had on tenor. Where many soprano players sound pinched or nasal, Sims sounds like himself: relaxed, melodic, with a natural vibrato that gives every note a singing quality. Ray Bryant's bluesy, gospel-inflected piano is a perfect complement, adding grit and soul to the lighter soprano voice.

George Mraz and Grady Tate, returning from the Gershwin Brothers date, provide the same impeccable support. The repertoire mixes standards with a few originals, all played at tempos that allow the soprano to bloom. The instrument's higher register encourages Zoot to explore a slightly different range of melodic ideas, and the results are consistently engaging.

Four stars. Not quite as transcendent as the Gershwin Brothers, but a thoroughly enjoyable soprano showcase that demonstrates Sims's versatility and his ability to make any instrument sound like an extension of his own personality.

Jimmy Rowles was the pianist's pianist: a master accompanist whose harmonic imagination and dry, understated touch made him the first call for singers and saxophonists who valued subtlety over flash. His partnership with Zoot is one of the great piano-saxophone pairings of the late seventies. Rowles hears everything Zoot plays and responds with voicings that illuminate the harmony from unexpected angles.

George Mraz is once again flawless, and Mousey Alexander plays with the quiet, steady swing that the material demands. The repertoire is all standards, chosen with the care of musicians who know exactly which songs suit their voices. Every ballad is a miniature story, every up-tempo track a demonstration of effortless swing.

Five stars. This is late-period Zoot at his finest, with a rhythm section that matches him in taste and sensitivity. The title says it all.

A tribute to Billie Holiday, recorded in 1978 but not released until 1991, thirteen years later. The program is eleven songs associated with Holiday, and Zoot plays them with the reverence and intimacy of a musician who absorbed her phrasing deep in his bones. This is not an imitation of Holiday's vocal style on saxophone. It is something more subtle: the application of her rhythmic freedom, her way of bending a melody just enough to make it personal, to Sims's own instrumental voice.

Jimmy Rowles is once again the ideal partner. He had actually accompanied Holiday on many occasions, and his playing here has a memorial quality: tender, knowing, never sentimental. George Mraz and Jackie Williams provide discreet, sympathetic support. The whole session has an intimacy that recording studios rarely capture.

Five stars. The thirteen-year delay in release is a tragedy, because this is one of the most beautiful jazz records of the 1970s. Every note is weighed and felt.

Zoot Sims's final studio recording, made less than two years before his death from lung cancer on March 23, 1985. He was fifty-nine years old. There is no audible decline in his playing: the tone is as warm as ever, the swing as effortless, the melodic invention as fresh. If anything, there is an added depth to the ballad performances, a gravity that comes from a lifetime of playing.

Jimmy Rowles, George Mraz, and Akira Tana form the same kind of sensitive, responsive rhythm section that characterized the best Pablo dates. Rowles and Sims had by this point achieved the kind of telepathic rapport that only comes from years of playing together, and their interplay on the slower pieces is breathtaking in its simplicity and emotional directness.

Five stars. A beautiful, bittersweet final statement from one of the most naturally gifted musicians in jazz history. The spring of the title is both a season and a state of mind, and Sims captures both with a grace that makes this record an essential part of his legacy.