Clifford Brown: "Best Coast Jazz" is the Five Star bookend session to "Clifford Brown All Stars", both having been recorded at the same session in Los Angeles in 1954. On the vinyl LP, each song took up a side, allowing for plenty of blowing room. "BCJ" would be released in 1955. One year later, Clifford Brown (and pianist Richie Powell and wife) would be dead from a car wreck on the Penn Turnpike during a rainstorm. Thus altering the course of jazz trumpet history in one tragic act. "CBAS" would be hurriedly released following the accident and we would once again shake our heads at the tremendous loss of trumpet genius Clifford Brown.
A lively espionage drama that reunited the stars and director of the previous year's The Maltese Falcon, Across the Pacific was originally envisioned as the story of a Japanese invasion of Hawaii. Real-life events of December of 1941, however, precluded such a scenario and the location was changed to the Panama Canal. For reasons known only to Warner Bros., the title was retained despite the fact that none of the action takes place in the Pacific. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Leland, a disgraced ex-army man, who, after being turned down by the Canadian military, jumps a Japanese steamer bound for the Panama Canal Zone. Also onboard are Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor), a small-town girl claiming to be en route to Los Angeles; Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet), a corpulent sociologist with a suspiciously friendly regard for all things Japanese; and Joe Totsuiko (Victor Sen Yung), a happy-go-lucky second generation Japanese-American on his way to visit the old country.
If you thrive on a healthy diet of 1950s jazz played by a matched pair of talented saxophonists, this collection will be a swinging slice of heaven. Among the "coolest" of the West Coast tenor players of the 1950s, Bill Perkins in later years became a bit influenced by John Coltrane and modernized his style in a personal way. A flexible and versatile musician who also played baritone, alto, soprano, and flute, Perkins was best-known for his work on tenor.
Bill Perkins was a saxophonist and flutist popular on the West Coast jazz scene, known primarily as a tenor saxophonist. Born in San Francisco, California, Perkins started out performing in the big bands of Woody Herman and Jerry Wald. He also worked for the Stan Kenton orchestra, which subsequently led to his entry into the cool jazz idiom. He began performing with musicians like Art Pepper and Bud Shank, to name just a few. He was also a member of The Tonight Show band from 19701992. He is probably most remembered, however, for playing tenor for The Lighthouse All-Stars.