Search - Various Artists :: Prestige Legacy: Battle of the Saxes 2

In the 1950s, when Prestige Records was flying high with Blue Note and Verve (before the latter pair took on major label status), the old-school "cutting contest," where jazz musicians went head-to-head with one another on riff-based tunes, was still in fashion. Here's a collection of 11 first-class multiple-saxophone throwdowns, where the tunes are little more than "heads" followed by solos and more solos. From end to end, the chronological collection is riveting. High marks include the 1949 opening foursome of Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Allen Eager, and Brew Moore swinging languidly on "Battle of the Saxes." Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane lock horns on 1956's "Tenor Madness," and Oliver Nelson and Eric Dolphy scorch the hills with "Alto-itis" from 1960. The great jazz tangler Sonny Stitt shows up with Gene Ammons (from 1950) and Booker Ervin (from 1964). In some spots, the intensity of the sax throwdowns drive the energy and intensity well into the stratosphere here. But often, the music kicks leisurely as musicians find their mirror image near them, throwing gauntlets and having a blast. In their offhand qualities, these performances are quintessential jazz events--full of the thrill of mutual discovery, something often missing from the music's mainstream output at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries. --Andrew Bartlett