BillF

That's a nice one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVOrg2ggwGg

Some great Mel Lewis albums there. I saw the Mel Lewis Orch at the Wigan Jazz Festival in 1989. Would that be on the same trip to Europe as the WDR album? Now playing:

I feel it's with Up, Over & Out, the year after Straight Up, that he really gets into it. Now playing:

This is one I've listened to a lot.

Track 9: Something of Lucky Thompson in that tenor style and I hear echoes of Roy Eldridge in the trumpet, but I don't think it's either of them. Must admit I didn't recognize the changes of "Body and Soul" until the melody came in at the end.

Track 4: Coltrane's "Lonnie's Lament". Reminiscent of Conrad Herwig and Brian Lynch's Latin treatment of this tune on Que Viva Coltrane though of course it isn't that. Track 5: Now this is a track and composition that I know quite well, though, of course, I can't place it. Track 7: I'll guess Joe Pass.

Now playing:

Now that's one I missed - the Miles quintet with Stitt at the FreeTrade Hall, Manchester in 1960. I think it was during the university vacation and I was at home in Leeds. Fellow student (later jazz critic of the London Evening Standard) the late Jack Massarik told me he was there.

Wow!