![\"Bethlehem](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Bethlehem-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>recorded Dexter Gordon, Booker Ervin, Zoot Sims, Mel Torm\u00c3\u00a9, Oscar Pettiford, Nina Simone, Chris Connor and a couple of dozen other major artists on both coasts. He provided outlets for substantial but little-known singers like Peggy Connelly, Betty Blake and Pat Moran. Bethlehem remained important to jazz through the 1950s and into the 1960s, when it came under new ownership and began edging into Rhythm & Blues and gospel. Some Bethlehem jazz recordings have shown up in recent years on labels that may or may not have had legal reissue permission. Others all but disappeared.<\/p>\nFrank Rosolino<\/strong>, I Play Trombone<\/em><\/a> (Bethlehem)<\/p>\n Among those revived by Naxos is a 1956 session that brought together Rosolino, pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Wilfred Middlebrooks and drummer Stan Levey,—all musicians who earned greater recognition than they receive these days. During his years as a mainstay of the Stan Kenton band, then as a freelance jazz and studio artist, Rosolino (1926-1978) I Play Trombone<\/em> includes one of the earliest covers of Sonny Rollins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Doxy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d introduced less than two years earlier on a Miles Davis recording. Levey recalled, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Frank loved to play that tune.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Alternating intricate fast passages with langorous extended notes, Rosolino discloses bebop inventiveness as well as the blues and soul feeling he absorbed in his youth in Detroit. The lightness, speed and mastery of harmony in Clark\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s soloing on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Doxy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are typical of the work he was doing during the mid-fifties with Rosolino, the Buddy DeFranco quartet and the Lighthouse All-Stars. Rosolino blazes through a fast blues called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My Delux.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Muted, he relaxes with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Things We Did Last Summer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d For Rosolino, however, relaxation was incomplete without digressing into a rapid-fire arpeggio or two. This session is a gem of his discography.<\/p>\n The Jazz Experiments of Charles Mingus<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (Bethlehem)<\/p>\n All of his career, Mingus sought combinations of instruments, forms and musical textures that would satisfy the demands of his protean nature. As he grew older, his eclecticism kept pace with the development of his skill as a bassist, composer and leader, producing such milestone recordings as Mingus Ah-Um<\/em> and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady<\/em>. In this 1954 sextet session, we hear him on the way to those heights. It stands as one of the most engaging of his relatively early achievements. <\/p>\n As bassist, pianist, composer and arranger, Mingus coalesces the human and musical elements into six tracks that are extensions of his personality. That is true throughout, but particularly on his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Minor Intrusion,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which the written and improvised sections blend in and out of one another and the soloists are in conversation or, as Mingus suggests in his liner notes, occasional arguments.<\/p>\n Oddly, the Bethlehem reissue of this album, originally on the Period label, eliminates the Macero composition “Abstractions.” The piece is included in this earlier reissue<\/a> on Original Jazz Classics. <\/p>\n<\/a> became a trombone soloist admired on a level with J.J. Johnson, Jack Teagarden, Kai Winding and Bill Harris. His facility, harmonic imagination, daring and humor have inspired legions of younger trombonists, among them the contemporary players Andy Martin, Scott Whitfield, Wycliffe Gordon and Bill Watrous.<\/p>\n<\/a>Except for the inclusion of Jackson Wiley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cello on some pieces, the instrumentation is standard for bebop and post-bop small bands—a rhythm section and three horns. Not just any three horns, however; this was the recording debut of trumpeter Thad Jones, and the band included saxophonists John LaPorta and Teo Macero. Macero, also a composer, went on to a primary career as a producer. From the 1960s, that kept his highly individual tenor sax mostly under wraps. LaPorta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clarinet and saxophone playing got considerable exposure during his Woody Herman days. In this album, his alto sax is a primary factor in solos and in the ensembles. LaPorta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrangement of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stormy Weather\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gives Jones a showcase for his technique and the expressiveness of his ballad playing. Dizzy Gillespie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s example is plain in Jones\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work on Mingus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrangement of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What Is This Thing Called Love,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but throughout the album it is clear that an important new trumpet soloist has emerged.<\/p>\n