Dig Deep: Buddy Collette – Now And Then – Legend Records (1973)

BuddyCollette

Buddy Collette – Fun City
Buddy Collette – Shatara
Buddy Collette – Safari West

As I’m pretty sure I mentioned previously, I’ve been buying and listening to a lot of jazz over the past year. This record came my way via KPFK’s Jazz guru Mark Maxwell, host of Rise on Sunday/Monday Midnights to 2am on the station. Last year Mark was selling records at the Beat Swap Meet and mentioned that he also had some rarer things up on Ebay at that time. He asked me if I had heard this record from Buddy Collette, who did some really solid work with Chico Hamilton and on his own in the 1950s and 1960s…I had not. Lucky for me (though not I supposed for Mark), no one else seemed to be interested in this record and I got it for a shockingly low price (so low that I think I actually gave Mark some additional money, because it just didn’t seem right getting a record this good for that cheap).

Collette was a really central figure in the jazz scene here in Los Angeles, both as a musician and as a teacher (Eric Dolphy was a student of his and I think we can all be thankful for that), well respected though not as well-known as others associated with West Coast Jazz. Just over the past year I’ve added more than a few records featuring Collette, particularly his gorgeous work with Chico Hamilton in the 1950s. This album was a bit of a surprise, mostly because I hadn’t heard much from Collette out of the 50s/60s sweet spot. Though most of the album is fairly straight ahead and what you might expect (“Shatara” in particular reminds me of those Chico Hamilton years), “Fun City” and “Safari West” have a fantastic, almost Spiritual jazz quality to them. Like so many of the records Collette was associated with in his many many years as a player, this music seems designed to be played on calm and serene Spring days, just like the one we enjoyed today here in Los Angeles.

Cheers,

Michael

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