Trumpeter Johnny Coles: "The Warm Sound"

CiTR -- The Jazz Show

This was trumpeter Johnny Coles' debut album under his name and this begins a series for August of rare and sometimes hard to find recordings by artists well known or more obscure. Coles lies in the middle as he like many musicians should be better known. His distinctive approach to the trumpet marked him as being a superbly individual voice. Johnny was widely admired but never achieved that legendary status. This rare date is a fine example of his work and should have placed him in the top rank of trumpeters but instead it became a "collector's item". It was done for Epic Records (a Jazz subsidiary of Columbia Records in 1961. Epic put out some fine dates and some became famous but some remained obscure, this was one of them and it didn't deserve that fate. Johnny picked pianist Kenny Drew for the date as well as John "Peck" Morrison on bass and Charli Persip on drums. At Johnny's request pianist/composer Randy Weston was invited to supervise the playing and interpretation of some of his tunes and on the final two selections Randy takes over the piano chores from Kenny Drew. Randy performs on his song "Where?" and his delightful "Babe's Blues". All in all this was an auspicious debut for Johnny Coles, it's just too bad few people heard it at the time. Hear "Little Johnny C." at his best tonight and enjoy "The Warm Sound".