There's something in the sonority of bebop and early hard bop / cool recordings that particularly appeals to me. It's a kind of sour taste. I can't really identify its source: maybe the recording technology itself or the calfskin drumheads. I hear this most with Art Blakey; the recordings with Monk for Blue Note; some Miles Davis nightclub recordings from 1951 with Blakey on drums, where the recording quality is rather poor, but his bass drum feels like a punch to the stomach. The bebop slang for this kind of bass-drum hit was a "bomb."

Blakey tunes his drums lower than most of his contemporaries, and his famous for a particular kind of press-roll with crescendo.

Tastiness is a kind of "savory" or "flavorful" quality. I first started using it actively in my own critical vocabulary when I heard an interview with Ray Charles on Fresh Air. When he was starting out Charles had a Nat Cole-style trio and wanted to play "tasty" bits on the piano under his own singing. He kept repeating that word "tasty" in the interview. I knew he exactly what he meant because one of my first jazz LPs as a a kid was a Capitol recording of Cole playing with his trio and not singing at all. Tasty means taste-FUL but also hip in an indescribably understated way. Like most purist jazz fans of that period I regretted the fact that he ever started singing in the first place, but the early recording of him singing with his trio are still pretty hip, with those tasty, tasteful licks.

I still get no kick from Marsalis. I'm sure that if I just took one small sniff it would bore me terrifically too. Mere alchohol doesn't thrill me at all, and flying up high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do. It's as though the playing weren't really present. I can't hear it. It's like eating soup in a dream: you can't really say that it has any taste at all after you wake up. I react this way even when I don't even know it's Wynton, like when I listen to a jazz radio station and only find out later whom I've been listening to. So it's not mere prejudice, though I'm sure I'm not unbiased. My daughter's first trumpet teacher had her listening to more Wynton than I would have liked. He schmaltzes up "The Last Rose of Summer," and I also prefer other versions of the Haydn concerto and other trumpet solo warhorses to his. It is true, as Tom King suggests in a comment to previous post, that his virtuosity stands him in good stead for the Carnival of Venice, if you like that kind of thing. From the point of view of a brass player, which I'm not, Wynton is a killer player. I'll defer to them on his technical prowess, but not on his ultimate tastiness.

What can I say about Wynton? My view is hardly original or unusual, but Wynton is a not a first-rate player at all, despite his considerable virtuosity, earnestness, and jazz erudition. The missing element is that "it." That tastiness and conviction. There's often a pedanticism about playing older styles, one that is stylistically correct but misses the essential element of those styles: that indefinable tastiness we get in Nat Cole or Coleman Hawkins. Even more minor figures than Wynton have this quality in greater abundance. I think Wynton strives for that but misses it by a country mile. His classical playing is virtuosic but rather pompous; I'll take Alison Balson over him.

Of course tastiness is a function of taste. Wynton's supporters will have a different opinion than mine. Of course, they will be wrong, but what I can do about that?

I was listening to the Verve Benny Carter small group sessions on my latest long car trip (highly recommended btw). These are the notes I took in my head as I was driving.

Timbre: Warm, but not too sweet. A rough edge. Breathy in the lower register, bright at the higher range. Timbre, intonation, articulation, are not constant but expressive, variable.

Vibrato is noticeable on longer notes, and is highly controlled. One of his trademarks is to crescendo through a long notes while increasing the vibrato. His normal style at fast tempo has virtually no vibrato at all.

Phrasing and rhythm: Phrases tend to be long, with logical connections between phrases. At slower tempi there is a rubato feel, even when he is playing over strict time. There is no nervous edginess; the rhythmic conception is pre-bop. At medium tempo plays on the beat, rather than lagging behind or pushing it. At slower tempi he plays more behind, but not as much as the later Lester Young. Articulation is fluid, legato, with sensitive dynamics, especially at slower tempo. Attack is sharper at fast tempo. (Always sharper than Johnny Hodges.)

Improvisational style: There is a lot of direct statement of the melody, with variation in rhythmic phrasing but not a lot of excess ornament. There is more melodic paraphrase than simple "blowing over the chord changes." (You can always tell what song he is playing!) Ideas are inventive, memorable, melodic, exploitating the full range of the alto sax. A strong sense of logic in the development of solos. Limited use of too obvious formulas. However, if he comes upon a phrase he likes he will repeat it a few times before moving on. Very "tasty" aesthetic, similar to Teddy Wilson (who plays on some of these tracks.) In the same general feel as Lester Young.

Emotional range: he excells both at melancholy and exuberance. (He has different approaches to slow and fast tempi.) He is not afraid to be lushly romantic, but doesn't lapse into bad taste, because there is a wry tone of resignation in his melancholy.

Overall qualities: Intelligence, warmth, flexibility, amiability, confident ease, equanimity. Emotional responsiveness. Good taste ("tastiness"). A pleasant up and down "lilt" to his playing, resulting from overall rhythmic and melodic approach. Along with Hodges, Young, Hawkins, the best representatives of the classic "swing" style on the saxophone.