Indeed!
Shelley's about my age, maybe a few years younger, but if anybody qualifies as an "old soul", it's him. He's always played like this. He also plays more "modern", but with this same type feel. It's because he grew up in houston, and was intimate (in the non-sexual way ) with Wilkerson and Arnett Cobb from a very early age. I think he told me that he even dated Cobb's daughter for a while. Shelley can tell you stories about Don that you wouldn't believe. And he thinks of Arnett as his "father", that's how close they were.
Point is, this shit is in his blood, not from a distance, or through some "love" for the music that is from afar, but because of his environment. A lot of younger guys can "play the style", but if you haven't lived it, really lived it, there's going to be something, a crucial something imo, missing. Shelley's lived it, and ain't nothing missing.
Well hell, I thought that might be it, I've got it on CDR, but I don't listen to it hardly at all because I heard those guys umpteen jillion times with their own rhythm sections, and hearing them with this one kinda pisses me off. Long story.... Let's just say that Marchel & Heavy are/were real jazz musicians, and that the rhythm section cats are/were top-shelf professional musicians and leave it at that. It doesn't matter any more.
Yeah, I noticed. That's a drag. Morgan's really opening up here, I think. Works for me, but mileages vary, as the say.
Never been too much of a Bobby Watson fan, but I really dug this. Maybe it's the intimacy of the setting. I very much appreciate the "smallness" of the playing here - no "gestures" or "signifyin'", just nice storytelling. Wish there were more jazz players will (or even able) to "go small" like this. It's a good thing.