Apogee

Originally issued in 1978, and making its first appearance on CD, would never have been released on if 's and -- then coming off of -- hadn't produced it. was not in the business of issuing new records at the time. is an anomaly in many ways. First, it is a southern California answer to the great titan tenor battle records of the '40s and '50s. Rather than sounding like a cutting contest, it sounds like a gorgeous exercise in swinging harmony and melodic by two compadres. , who was then a member of and played on ' records, is a solid, old-school swinging tenor player whose style comes out of the school, but whose phrasing feels more like 52nd Street circa 1947. was already a legend, 20 years older than , a warrior who had developed his own style on the tenor apart from , , or any of the big stylists. His phrasing and ideas are outside of time and space because he thwarted the conventions at every turn, yet he remained one of the most rhythmically astute improvisers in history. His time spent with piano and composition genius is what laid the groundwork, but by the time recorded this set he was in a league of his own. With a rhythm section that included on piano, (another sideman at the time), and on drums, the pair engaged a kind of freewheeling, good-time set that remains one of the most harmonically sophisticated recordings to come out of the 1970s. The track selection revolves around the opening track, a jam reworked around the title cut of another like-minded southern California tenors album from the 1950s called by . Here, executed their lines -- courtesy of beautiful charts by -- with grace, ease, and maverick intensity. There is a playfulness that comes to the front line from the rhythm section that both propels and lures the players into one another's orbits. While the opener offers long and loping dual lines, the intense solo contrasts on written by especially for the session, showcase their wildly divergent solo approaches. could charge the rhythm section or wind his way around it, while 's sense of swing was open and hard. When they go after one another at about five and a half minutes into the track, the entire thing breaks wide open and becomes one of the great contrapuntal "singalong" moments in recorded history. Other standouts include the two blowout jam approaches to and the / classic But this is not merely some exercise in self-congratulation, as evidenced by the radical chromatic reworking of or the melodic extrapolation at the heart of composed by after the tune The 2004 remaster, which features spectacular sound, also includes three bonus tracks form the session, the most notable of which is 's moving groover There are new liner notes by as well as the originals by the late . This is a bona fide classic that was well worth the wait for a deluxe CD treatment. ~ Thom Jurek