Roger Kellaway, still high on the news of his award by the French, sent a succinct message with a link. The link takes you to a performance by Zoot Sims. The transcription blowup on the wall behind the bandstand identifies the club as the lamented Donte’s in Los Angeles. Here is Roger’s message in its entirety:
A fun trip down memory lane
The rhythm section is Kellaway, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Larry Bunker. Like his playing, Zoot’s style of hair and dress remained pretty much unchanged for the last two decades of his life, thank goodness, but the costumery and hairdos on Kellaway and Bunker seem to place this in the late 1970s. Play this only if you want to feel good.
The Zoot Sims performance should be on this (which can be found here:
http://turnerclassic.moviesunlimited.com/browse_list.asp?cid=cp&dept=Jazz&subdept=Zoot+Sims&media=v )
Zoot Sims Quartet (1970)/Shelly Manne Quartet [DVD] (1970) At Dante’s Jazz Club in Los Angeles, saxophonist Sims joins Roger Kellaway on piano, drummer Larry Bunker, and bassist Chuck Berghofer for a concert that includes such songs as “Zoot’s Piece,” “My Old Flame,” and “On the Trail.” Next, “Blues in the Basement,” “Stella by Starlight,” and “Milestones” are among the tunes from Manne, along with Ray Brown on bass, pianist Hampton Hawes, and saxman Bob Cooper, in a show from the drummer’s own Shelly’s Manne Hole Club. 60 min. total.
(For the orthographically fussy: the name of the club was Donte’s. It is frequently misspelled as Dante’s, as it is on the web site to which Mr. Levin’s comment refers us — DR)
This clip of Zoot playing with Roger, Chuck and Larry … what a tasty treat! Zoot and Al were my favorite tenor players and fortunately for me, they were working a lot in New York when I lived there. Ah, the dear old days of The Half Note!