Curtis Counce - You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! (1957/2023)

Acoustic Sounds celebrates Contemporary Records with this new reissue of Curtis Counce's 1957 album You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! Originally released in 1957 the album sees Counce (bass) alongside Jack Shelton (trumpet), Harold Land (tenor sax), Carl Perkins (piano) & Frank Butler (drums). Recorded by Roy DuNann this edition is pressed on 180-gram vinyl pressed at QRP with (AAA) lacquers cut from the original tapes by Bernie Grundman and is presented in a tip-on jacket.

You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce! is smooth, well-played post-bop. Recorded by Contemporary Records' great West Coast engineer Roy DuNann, and first released in 1957, this reissue features the original title and cover art, as well as improved sound courtesy of an all-analog remastering by Bernie Grundman from the original tapes. It's music for a cocktail party jazz crowd for whom the progressive talents of the era like Charlie Parker, Lee Morgan and Thelonious Monk may have been too raw and inexplicable. The slightly cool jazz benefits from Carl Perkins' underrated piano playing and tenor saxophone great Harold Land, creating a likable if unambitious program of standards that nob towards the cutting edge. Parker's "Big Foot"—in which everyone improvises a solo—becomes an effective vehicle for Land. Irving Berlin's "How Deep is the Ocean" proceeds at a languid, some might say, sexy pace. The uptempo "Mean to Me" opens with trumpeter Jack Shelton stating the theme before Land enters with a swinging, full-bodied solo. Sheldon returns and Perkins solos in a performance that could be called "be-Bop for the masses." No envelopes being pushed here but a pleasing listen all the same. © Robert Baird

Tracklist
1. Complete (6:01)
2. How Deep Is The Ocean? (6:50)
3. Too Close For Comfort (5:47)
4. Mean To Me (4:39)
5. Stranger In Paradise (7:13)
6. Counceltation (6:10)
7. Big Foot (9:14)