Arnett Cobb, any thoughts?

[Hardbopjazz]

This morning I heard a tenor player on my radio while on my way to work. It was Arnett Cobb. I don't know much about him. I liked what I heard. Where is a good place to start?

[jazzbo]

My favorite. You'll dig.

[White Lightning]

My favorite.

[Brad]

I'd recommend Party Time and More Party Time. Absolutely dyanmite. Lon's recommendation is also great. There are also some Classics cds or at least one. I'd get that too.

[Allan Songer]

This morning I heard a tenor player on my radio while on my way to work. It was Arnett Cobb. I don't know much about him. I liked what I heard. Where is a good place to start?

Most "Cobb Snobs" point to the early honking wild-ass sides from the late 40's and tend to downplay the dates recorded after his horrific car wreck in the mid-1950's. But I think his best work was for Prestige where he made a whole GAGGLE of albums in the late 50's/early 60's-- they're all about the same and they're all pretty damn good. My favorite is "Smooth Sailing," but I think you should

start here:

Party Time with Arnett Cobb

Edited February 1, 2006 by Allan Songer

[Soulstation1]

emusic.com has some arnett

[Soulstation1]

http://www.emusic.com/artist/10558/10558009.html

[Joe]

The LIVE AT SANDY'S material that was originally on Muse is also fine (some sparring with Cleanhead Vinson and Buddy Tate).

Of the Prestige dates, I admit to a soft spot for this one:

Edited February 1, 2006 by Joe

[brownie]

Cobb was a Monster! Played on crutches after his legs were injured in a car accident a long time ago.

He was amazing!

Love the various sessions he recorded for Black and Blue. They have been reissued recently and all are worth seeking!

[CJ Shearn]

Blow Arnett Blow is great........... I'm not a huge fan of the chunky organ of Bill Davis (hey its the roots of JOS, gotta respect it) but with Arnett and Lockjaw.. ouch

[P.D.]

Hampton took Cobb to fill Jacquets chair in 1942 and he took over the "Flying Home" role which might have contributed to his hard blowing approach that some see to be too much of the honker variety.

Just in case you have "guilt" about Cobb, this is a good excuse to listen to him

But for his Prestige sides.. Party Time is generally the first place to go.

Edited February 1, 2006 by P.D.

[EKE BBB]

...

ABSOLUTELY OFF-TOPIC:

Great to hear back from you, P.D. !!!

[brownie]

Just in case you have "guilt" about Cobb, this is a good excuse to listen to him

Always a treat to listen to that reunion where Arnett outblows the competition!

[Guy Berger]

Here's a thread I started a while back .

Guy

[Hardbopjazz]

Thanks. I will check those sessions out.

[Dave James]

I too am a fan of the Red Garland sides. Moodsville stuff if I'm not mistaken, so it's definitely showcase the softer side of Mr. Cobb. "Black Velvet" is a particularly nice cut off this one. I have some of his other Fantasy material, but for me anyway, at times, there's still a little too much of the bar walker in him for me.

Up over and out.

Edited February 1, 2006 by Dave James

[P.D.]

...

ABSOLUTELY OFF-TOPIC:

Great to hear back from you, P.D. !!!

Oh haven't been away.. just went into the "lurking mode" but thanks.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I agree with all the recommendations made. There is no such thing as bad Arnett Cobb. Or rather, it's all BADDDD!

My favourite is "Smooth Sailing" - only, I think, because it was the first I got.

MG

[Lazaro Vega]

If you're starting out on Arnett Cobb perhaps the Lionel Hampton sides are a good place as it puts the rest of his career in context. There's a nice Decca CD under Hamp's name called "Midnight Sun" featuring "Flying Home #2" and "Cobb's Idea," I think. I hope that's right.

His early Okeh recordings, the first version of "Smooth Sailing" and the reason why it became a staple for the rest of his career, may be available CD through Classics, but here is the lp that features this bootin' music: http://tinyurl.com/9utsr

Another good place for some jumpin' Arnett Cobb is that Delmark release of Apollo recordings, "Arnett Blows for 1300."

There was a time in the 1980's that Cobb was recording on Progressive Records, too, usually in quartets and that stuff compliments the Prestige material, helps to fill out the picture. I think those Progressive Records were done right before or about the same time as the "Live at Sandy's" taping, but I favored the Progressives back in college radio days just because they were more organized, better recorded and swung like mad.

[Brad]

Hampton took Cobb to fill Jacquets chair in 1942 and he took over the "Flying Home" role which might have contributed to his hard blowing approach that some see to be too much of the honker variety.

Just in case you have "guilt" about Cobb, this is a good excuse to listen to him

But for his Prestige sides.. Party Time is generally the first place to go.

Very saxy is indeed a fantastic album for everybody on it.

[Larry Kart]

Here's a brief review I wrote of Cobb in 1980. It's reprinted in my book:

There could be no better proof of the importance of sound in jazz, the tone or timbre one gets out of an instrument, than the music of tenor saxophonist Arnett Cobb. A native of Houston and one of the great Southwestern tenormen, along with Buddy Tate, Ben Webster, the late Herschel Evans, and Illinois Jacquet (who preceded Cobb in the Lionel Hampton band), this sixty-two-year-old master has a sound that no recording studio is equipped to reproduce.

It is, to begin with, simply huge, perhaps the darkest, most imposingly rich tenor saxophone tone of all. And what Cobb does with it--the range of chortles, whoops, cries, trills, swells, slurs, shouts, and just plain honks that he has at his command is such that he could say, with Walt Whitman, “I am vast, I contain multitudes.”

Not that Cobb is limited merely to purveying that sound. He is, by any standards, a rhythmically agile, harmonically sophisticated player who shapes his melodic lines with surprising delicacy. But because the significance of sound per se is so often overlooked in jazz, as though it were a seasoning rather than an essential ingredient, it is his sound that I want to concentrate on for the time being.

When a man has a tone like Cobb’s and can manipulate it so freely, he has at hand an almost literal musical language, a collection of timbres that each take on a specific emotional meaning. And that specificity of emotional tone-color--which any listener can hear, even if one doesn’t wish to analyze it--also ranges outward to affect every other aspect of the music: rhythm, harmony, melody, etc. For example during Cobb’s solo on “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” he began a chorus with a seemingly simple two-note phrase, which might be rendered onomatopoetically as “YAH-duh.” Now I suppose you had to be there to hear what that “YAH-duh” did, but let me assure you that within its apparent simplicity there was more musical meaning than words could exhaust. Aside from the way he attacked the first note, creating a catapulting sense of swing, there was the way its relative density--its heavy, centered sound--contrasted with the grainier, more oblique tonal texture of the second note. The effect of this might be compared to a gymnast’s second, more easeful bounce on a trampoline. And listening to it one could feel a literal loosening in the knees, an invitation to enter a realm of sensuous physicality.

The creation and control of such effects, in which the abstract and the emotional aspects of jazz become one thing, is what Cobb’s music is all about. And if the principles at work in that “YAH-duh,” which must have lasted no more than a second, are expanded to cover an entire performance, it is easy to imagine just how richly varied this master’s language can be.

[catesta]

My favorite. You'll dig.

Yep.

[Stereojack]

Arnett Cobb is one of the great strong men of the tenor sax. I got to see him several times back in the 1970's, and he never disappointed. After recording the fine series for Prestige (all worth checking out) he returned to Texas and was pretty much off the radar for the rest of the 60's and most of the 70's. When I first saw him it was as part of an all star band that Lionel Hampton put together for the Boston Globe Jazz Festival in 1977. Cobb came out for his feature "The Nearness of You" on crutches, the result of more than one ( I believe) automobile accident. While he may have been physically disabled, he played his ass off, and this tune was the highlight of the evening. I became an instant fan, and began to track down his Prestige albums, one by one, most of which were out of print.

The following year he was part of an all star band that played a full week at Sandy's in Beverly, MA - Arnett Cobb, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Buddy Tate, Ray Bryant, George Duvivier, and Alan Dawson. There was plenty of buzz about this gig around Boston, and I went opening night to a packed house. The music was divine! Muse Records recorded two nights later in the week, one of which I attended, which ultimately yielded six (!) fine LP's, two each under each of the saxophonists' names.

A few months later Arnett played a week at Lulu White's in Boston with a local rhythm section: Ray Santisi (piano), Whit Brown (bass), Alan Dawson (drums). Again, despite his physical frailties, his playing was strong and exciting.

Fortunately for us fans, he recorded regularly in his comeback years, with releases on Black & Blue, Progressive, and Beehive. As far as I know, only one CD has come out of the Sandy's sessions - "Arnett Cobb and the Muse All Stars Live at Sandy's" (Muse 5558), which contains all of one LP and three tunes from the second. The same disc may have also been issued on 32Jazz. Wouldn't this be a nice Mosaic Select - the complete Sandy's sessions?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Arnett Cobb is one of the great strong men of the tenor sax. I got to see him several times back in the 1970's, and he never disappointed. After recording the fine series for Prestige (all worth checking out) he returned to Texas and was pretty much off the radar for the rest of the 60's and most of the 70's. When I first saw him it was as part of an all star band that Lionel Hampton put together for the Boston Globe Jazz Festival in 1977. Cobb came out for his feature "The Nearness of You" on crutches, the result of more than one ( I believe) automobile accident. While he may have been physically disabled, he played his ass off, and this tune was the highlight of the evening. I became an instant fan, and began to track down his Prestige albums, one by one, most of which were out of print.

The following year he was part of an all star band that played a full week at Sandy's in Beverly, MA - Arnett Cobb, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Buddy Tate, Ray Bryant, George Duvivier, and Alan Dawson. There was plenty of buzz about this gig around Boston, and I went opening night to a packed house. The music was divine! Muse Records recorded two nights later in the week, one of which I attended, which ultimately yielded six (!) fine LP's, two each under each of the saxophonists' names.

A few months later Arnett played a week at Lulu White's in Boston with a local rhythm section: Ray Santisi (piano), Whit Brown (bass), Alan Dawson (drums). Again, despite his physical frailties, his playing was strong and exciting.

Fortunately for us fans, he recorded regularly in his comeback years, with releases on Black & Blue, Progressive, and Beehive. As far as I know, only one CD has come out of the Sandy's sessions - "Arnett Cobb and the Muse All Stars Live at Sandy's" (Muse 5558), which contains all of one LP and three tunes from the second. The same disc may have also been issued on 32Jazz. Wouldn't this be a nice Mosaic Select - the complete Sandy's sessions?

A great Mosaic Select, if anyone could persuade Nippon Columbia to license the material.

I forgot to mention earlier one of my favourite later Cobbs. "Midnight Slows vol 6", Arnett, Eddie Chamblee (can you believe that!), Milt Buckner & Panama Francis. Arnett & Eddie play four tracks together, and each lays out on two. Object lesson in how to kick ass very, very slowly; very, very sexily.

MG

[mikeweil]

His early Okeh recordings, the first version of "Smooth Sailing" and the reason why it became a staple for the rest of his career, may be available CD through Classics, but here is the lp that features this bootin' music: http://tinyurl.com/9utsr

Another good place for some jumpin' Arnett Cobb is that Delmark release of Apollo recordings, "Arnett Blows for 1300."

That Okeh LP unfortunately has only half of Cobb's recordings for Okeh - that stuff is excellent! The Classics series so far only had one volume which largely overlaps with the Apollos on the Delmark CD.