LP-639

Sandy Mosse - Relaxin' With Sandy Mosse

Released 1959

Recording and Session Information

Sandy Mosse, tenor saxophone; Junior Mance, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Marty Clausen, drums
September 5 1958, Chicago

LP 639 9054 I'm Old Fashioned
LP 639 9055 Birks' works
9056 The End of a Love Affair
LP 639 9057 Fools Rush In

Sandy Mosse, tenor saxophone; Eddie Higgins, piano; Art Tabachnik, Carl Racine, George Palermo, violin; Harold Kupper, viola; Harry Wagman, cello; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Marty Clausen, drums; Bill McRae, arranged by, conductor
October 13 1958, Chicago

LP 639 9103 Speak Low
LP 639 9104 Cocoanut Sweet
LP 639 9105 My Man's Gone Now
LP 639 9106 Love Is For The Very Young
LP 639 9107 Stella By Starlight

Track Listing

Fools Rush In	Rube Bloom	September 5 1958
I'm Old Fashioned	Jerome Kern	September 5 1958
Birks Works	Dizzy Gillespie	September 5 1958
Stella By Starlight	Victor Young	October 13 1958
Love Is For The Very Young	Dave Raksin	October 13 1958
Speak Low	Kurt Weill	October 13 1958
My Man's Gone Now	George Gershwin	October 13 1958
Cocoanut Sweet	Harold Arlen	October 13 1958

Liner Notes

In the provincial world of Chicago jazz, musicians do their best to be heard. They try to work with groups of their own, with other groups, at under-scale or no-pay sessions, or alone in bleak apartments, waiting for the call to either coast.

The majority of them are mediocre talents, whose aspirations far exceed their talents. Occasionally, however, the Chicago proving ground produces a genuinely creative jazzman, as it has in the past. These individualists depart the city, seeking solace and reward elsewhere.

There are few homes for imaginative jazzmen in Chicago.

The stigma of the "local" musician haunts their paths along night club row. The petty promoters and jazz parasites harass them and take advantage of their talents. The jazz public, fickle and insecure, casts them aside for the dubious attractions of the "name" performers.

Those musicians who love the city remain. But their life is a residue of bitterness, loneliness, and frustration. A life in jazz is not an easy one.

Sandy Mosse would like to live and work in Chicago. He's been trying to do just that for years, yet his income is substantially less than that of performers with far less artistry.

The tenor man, now in his late twenties, has tried to capture a niche in jazz. By working as regularly as possible, he has become well known to jazz fans in Chicago. He has worked in dives and in plushly padded spas, for club owners who rarely appreciated his efforts. Believing intensely in the rewards — personal and economic — of working steadily, he has attempted to do so in recent years.

In recent months, however, he has worked only sporadically. "They don't know I can play things other than jazz," he said to me once. "They think that because I've concentrated on jazz, I can't play anything else. Right now, I'll take any honest booking," he added.

Sandy Mosse is known to Chicago jazz fans and to a handful of devotees in other cities. He has not recorded album after album, as have other tenor men in other locales. He has chosen to remain in Chicago and has suffered.

Born in Detroit, Mosse came to Chicago when he was 11. He brought with him some background on clarinet. At Chicago's Sullivan high school, he met pianist Lou Levy. Together, they worked in the bands of Jimmy Dale and Jay Burkhart. They spent hours listening to the explorations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

In 1950, after having studied both clarinet and alto, Mosse switched to tenor. It was a case of finding the right sound.

In '51, Mosse headed for Europe. In Paris, he met Wally Bishop, who had been drummer with Earl Hines. Mosse joined Bishop's group, which toured the continent. After the tour, in '52, he married his wife, Clara, a native .of Amsterdam, and they returned to America.

He spent six months with Woody Herman's band, worked with various small groups, then, in '54, returned to Europe. His first recordings — quite rare — were cut then: Modern Sounds: France, with Henri Renaud's all stars (Contemporary 10" C2502), and Blue Star Jazz (Blue Star 6831), also with Renaud's group, In '56, after returning home, he participated in the small group tracks on the reverse side of Bill Russo's The World of Alcina on Atlantic.

It was in '56, too, that he signed with Argo, to embark on series of LPs featuring the work of Chicago jazzmen, his first opportunity to do so.

During the past year, Mosse has worked whenever possible. An able, proud musician, he has turned down jobs for less than union scale. Plagued by personal problems and an intense desire to succeed, he has struggled constantly for months. Often, he has considered a return to Europe, where, in his opinion, the jazz man is an artist, not a freak. To date, he has not succumbed to this urge, preferring to remain in Chicago, working on a day job in order to pay basic family expenses.

Influenced by Lester Young, Stan Getz, and Al Cohn (primarily the latter, Mosse feels), Mosse has managed to weld an individualistic conception, a fluency on the horn that is his own. His work is of value for several key reasons.

He is, above all else, a melodically-oriented musician. His work rarely borders on stridency. He is concerned with melodic content and the appropriate exploitation of that content. This does not mean that he is unaware of harmonic and rhythmic development; he is well aware of both and employs subtle patterns in his work. But to Mosse, the theme and variations are of equal importance.

This melodic strength is evident in this album. With the exception of Dizzy Gillespie's Birks' Works, a tour of the blues world, the selections, made by Mosse, are ones of melodic worth.

Here, Mcsse energetically approaches the Johnny Mercer-Rube Bloom gem, Fools Rush In. He performs the Jerome Kern-Mercer tune, I'm Old Fashioned (from the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier), in characteristically flowing fashion.

The tracks on which Mosse is backed by a string section emphasize his interest in melodic structure. All the tunes, by the way, originated in Hollywood or on Broadway. Mosse is direct on Stella By Starlight, the Victor Young-Ned Washington tune from the 1944 film, The Uninvited. He is properly balladic on David Raksin's 1953 Love Is For The Very Young, from the film The Bad And The Beautiful. The Kurt Weill-Ogden Nash composition, Speak Low, from 1944's One Touch of Venus, is given another free-flowing Mosse treatment. My Man's Gone Now, from the George Gershwin-Dubose Heyward epic, Porgy and Bess ( 1935), is another Mosse ballad. Cocoanut Sweet, the most recent entry, is from the 1938 Harold Arlen-E. Y. Harburg musical, Jamaica, and, too, is a ballad in Mosse's hands.

Working with Mosse on the quartet side are Junior Mance, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass, and Marty Clausen, drums. Mance, (listen to him on Birks' Works) well known for his work with the Adderley brothers, currently is with Dizzy Gillespie's group, Cranshaw is a member of Ed Higgins' trio in Chicago. Clausen, a little known (outside of Chicago), but quite inspiring drummer, has worked with Dan Belloc's big band and with various Chicago groups.

On the string tracks, Mance is replaced by Ed Higgins, who has headed his own trio at several leading Chicago night clubs for many months. Cranshaw and Clausen remain. The five strings added to the basic quartet are Arthur Tabachnick, Carl Racine, and George Palermo, violins, Harold Kupper, viola, and Harry Wagman, cello. Bill McRea, a prominent radio-TV arranger in Chicago, arranged and directed the string tracks, as he did for the big band tracks on Vito Price's Argo LP (Argo 631).

This is Sandy Mosse's first LP as a leader. He has been one of the leaders of jazz in Chicago for several years, but has been unable to achieve the recognition he deserves. Perhaps this LP will serve that purpose. If it does, it will be one reward for a musician who has given much of himself to jazz.

DON GOLD
Managing Editor
Down Beat Magazine

RECORDING DATES

9-5-58 Side 1
10-13-58 Side 2

TECHNICAL DATA

Stereo recording made on an Ampex-30()S. Monaural recording made on an Ampex-300S. Frequency response of equipment ± 2db 15cps—23kc.

Masters are made with little or no !imiting of dynamic range, and are cut at a level of not more than 5 cm per second, to avoid overloading pickup cartridges, Masters are in all cases made to duplicate, as closely as possible, what was heard in the control room during the session.

For best results, use RIAA playback equalization. On this recording, use a microgroove stylus only.