Mel Lewis

tune, If You Only Knew.

First up in the set, we heard from tenor saxophonist Don Braden from his debut recording, The Time Is Now, and it featured Tom Harrell at the trumpet, Benny Green again at the piano with Christian McBride bass and Carl Allen at the drums, and they did the great American songbook classic, Will You Still Be Mine? Now tenor saxophonist Frank Foster with Dad Jones and Mel Lewis on Giant Steps.

Thank you.

so

Thank you.

Tenor saxophonist Frank Foster, who was also the arranger on that one, from the pen of John Coltrane, that was Giant Steps.

And joining Frank to create that tenor saxophone battle was Greg Herbert, who's from the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Makes me think of how much those gentlemen John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins left in material that we're still dealing with to this day.

I don't play, um, timpani.

But Mel Lewis had sent me in on this jingle, you know, for Procter & Gamble or something, and I go in, and the guy says, "Do you play timpani?" And Of course, I said, "Yeah, sure."

[laughs]

And he just had a funny little cue, but I got the tuning backwards.

Yeah.

And, uh, it was, it was evident in the pop music, in the jazz, uh, recordings and concerts, the blues for sure, you know? Uh, I mean, there was this common thread, and you go back and look at who the drummers were.

Well, you know, you see Mel Lewis was on a lot of-

[chuckles]

Right? So, like, those guys, you know, they were in that band.

That's the, uh, Mel Lewis.

Uh, now, then it would've been Mel Lewis.

Thad had, had split, but, uh, you know, the, they were still doing a lot of that Thad music at the time.

Mm-hmm.