Salon: Sharps and Flats

By Andrew Gilbert

Dec 12, 1996 | The best jazz labels don't merely record good musicians, they create a musical community, a nexus through which like-minded players can explore a shared aesthetic vision. Since the '70s, no label has been more successful than Concord Jazz at building an extended musical family. That family came together on July 8, 1995 to commemorate the label's founder, the late Carl Jefferson, who died in March 1995. The resulting four-CD box set, "Jazz Celebration: A Tribute to Carl Jefferson," reunites about 80 of the artists who helped define Concord's mainstream swing-oriented sensibility.

Ever since Concord's inaugural release in 1973, a duo session with fret masters Joe Pass and Herb Ellis, the label has been known as the preeminent outlet for mainstream jazz guitar. Though many of the original players are no longer associated with Concord, virtually an entire wing of the guitar hall of fame showed up to pay their respects on "Jazz Celebration." From the Great Guitars, a trio featuring Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd and Ron Eschete (filling in for the ailing Barney Kessel) burning through the Benny Goodman/Charlie Christian warhorse "Seven Come Eleven" to Kenny Burrell's masterful Ellingtonia on "Take the 'A' Train," the instrument's elder statesmen were very well represented.

In a sad postscript to the concert, "Jazz Celebration" is the last recording by the great Brazilian guitarist/composer Laurindo Almeida, who died less than two weeks later. He opens his set with a brisk reading of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies," accompanied by bassist Jeff Chambers and drummer Billy Drummond, and closes with a delicate version of Jobim's "Meditation" with Charlie Byrd (who, along with Stan Getz, helped introduce Brazilian music to the U.S.).

Concord has also been a haven for vocalists. "Jazz Celebration" showcases such up and coming singers as Eden Atwood, Karrin Allyson and Dennis Rowland, as well as established veterans like Susannah McCorkle and Carol Sloan (who offers a delightfully swinging version of Ellington's "Love You Madly"). Mel Tormi and Rosemary Clooney, two of the greatest exponents of the Great American Songbook, have both found very comfortable homes at Concord, recording much of their best work for the label. Neither could make it to the July 8 concert, but both recorded their farewells to Jefferson later. Clooney reprises one of her early hits, "Sentimental Journey," and Tormi concludes the box set with a haunting version of Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," conveying the sense of loss many of the musicians speak of between sets.

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