Buddy Tate - Buddy Tate Body and Soul (1975/2018) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

Early influences are often the strongest and in jazz a musician’s formative years tend to set his style and sound. Miles Davis grew up in St. Louis where he heard such St. Louis trumpeters as Clark Terry, Irving Randolph and Shorty Baker when he was a boy, so Miles followed the “St. Louis trumpet tradition”. In the state of Texas it is tenor players, most of who seem to have grown up with big sounds and plenty of confidence, men such as Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Jimmy Giuffre and King Curtis. But the Texas tenor is George Holmes “Buddy” Tate, born in Sherman, Texas on February 22, 1914, and now a much travelled and highly respected soloist whose very presence in a club is a guarantee of capacity crowds and a feeling of well-being. When long-service medals are distributed for work with big bands then Buddy must be considered for he was with Count Basie for six months in 1934 then, from the spring of 1939, he was in the Basie saxophone section for more than ten years. He took Herschal Evans’ place and sat alongside a succession of tenor playing colleagues including Lester Young, Paul Bascombe, Don Byas, Lucky Thompson, Illinois Jacquet and Paul Gonsalves. With such grounding it is hardly surprising that Buddy is every inch a professional or that his solo playing is strongly affected by the blues. He has an acute understanding of what an audience wants, which probably accounts for the fact that he took a seven-piece band into Harlem’s “Celebrity Club” in 1952 and was still pleasing the crowd there nearly 20 years later. In 1959 he made his first trip to Europe, as a member of Buck Clayton’s band, and since then he has been back almost every year. In 1970 he brought the complete “Celebrity Club” band over for a European tour but most often Buddy works on this side of the Atlantic as a soloist with local musicians. He tries not to be typecast in terms of material. I heard him open the first set at London’s “Seven Dials” jazz club one night at the end of 1974 with On Green Dolphin Street which must have surprised a number of people in the capacity audience. Similarly he looks forward to playing with supporting musicians of widely varied backgrounds, men who will stimulate his musical imagination rather than a rhythm section which tries to give him a pseudo-Bassie setting.

Tracklist:
01. Stompin’ At the Savoy (Samson, Webb. Goodman) 7:12
02. Body And Soul (Green) 8:54
03. Buddy’s blues (Tate) 7:45
04. In a Mellow Tone (Ellington) 17:30
05. I Surrender Dear (Barris, Clifford) 3:32

Personnel:
Bass – Bo Stief
Drums – Svend-Erik Nørregaard
Liner Notes – Alfredo Papo
Piano – Tete Montoliu
Tenor Saxophone – Buddy Tate
Violin – Finn Ziegler (tracks: 2,3)
Vocals – Buddy Tate (tracks: 3)