Gene Ammons & Dexter Gordon The Chase

15 original albums with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Buck Clayton, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Parker, Gene Ammons, Wardell Grey, Melba Liston, Ben Webster, Duke Ellington, Bud Powell, Hampton Hawes, Billy Higgins, Max Roach, Billy Eckstine and Herbie Hancock, among others…

Short stints with Lee Young, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, and Louis Armstrong's big band preceded his move to New York in December 1944 and becoming part of Billy Eckstine's Orchestra, trading off with Gene Ammons on Eckstine's recording of Blowin' the Blues Away. Gordon recorded with Dizzy Gillespie (Blue 'N' Boogie) and as a leader for Savoy before returning to Los Angeles in the summer of 1946. He was a chief part of the Central Avenue scene, trading off with Wardell Gray and Teddy Edwards in many legendary tenor clashes. After 1952, drug struggles resulted in some jail time and periods of indolence during the '50s (although Gordon did record two albums in 1955).

The twin tenor sax tradition yielded grand pairings with the likes of Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon, Arnett Cobb and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, and Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. This one-shot teaming of Charlie Rouse and Paul Quinichette brought forth a union of two distinctly different mannerisms within the mainstream jazz continuum. Rouse, who would go on to prolific work with Thelonious Monk and was at this time working with French horn icon Julius Watkins, developed a fluid signature sound that came out of the more strident and chatty style heard here. By this time in 1957, Quinichette, nicknamed the Vice Prez for his similar approach to Lester Young, was well established in the short term with Count Basie…

André Francis and Jean Schwarz, two of the greatest lovers and connoisseurs of jazz, have designed this chronological anthology which brings together the greatest rare or essential masterpieces in the history of jazz, with its greatest creators, from 1944 to 1951.

There's something about the purling, snarling and booting of a baritone sax that can create pleasant disturbances in the listener's spine and rib cage. Leo Parker came up during the simultaneous explosions of bebop and rhythm & blues. Everything he touched turned into a groove. Recording for Savoy in Detroit during the autumn of 1947, Leo was flanked by Howard McGhee and Gene Ammons, who at this point seems to have been operating under the influence of Lester Young. Leo does his own share of Prez-like one-note vamping, bringing to mind some of Lester's Aladdin recordings made during this same time period. Leo's Savoys originally appeared on 78 rpm platters, then on 10" long-playing records…