Love Is Just Around the Corner
Chiaroscuro CR 179
On today’s record the music is not fantastic, stupendous or something in that order to my ears. It’s more like another evening at work for the guys. But sometimes you want to have your morning coffee, read the paper and put on a lightly swinging record in the background. And background music it was even at the time of recording. The people wait for the music to start, so they can speak and when it stops they notice it (in best cases) and gives a polite applause.
I’ve had hundreds of gigs like that myself and the thing is that this kind of music, when you just play standard tunes with a lot of improvisation still works well in these situations where you have the feeling that nobody is listening. (I can think about a lot of music that doesn’t.)
But, you have better be at least two in the front so it doesn’t become too hard work. I have another Bobby Hackett album from about the same time where he is alone with rhythm and there his playing becomes monotonous.
In companionship with the equally fluent Vic Dickenson on trombone his easy sounding cornet playing is very pleasant here and the few routines that they have worked out are tasteful and just enough to give the tunes a good structure. I also enjoy the piano solos by Dave McKenna. The quintet that has a very light sound is filled out with Jack Lesberg and Cliff Leeman on bass and drums and the recording year is 1970.