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Brew Moore

The Adventures of Brew Moore: The Kerouac Collection

Giant Steps GSCR 025

Brew Moore, the Lester Young disciple par excellence, never reached fifty (he fell downstairs in Denmark), spent a lot of time in Europe, and recorded relatively little under his own name, so he is a comparatively obscure figure these days, despite having been championed (and written about) by Jack Kerouac.

On the evidence of these recordings, though, this is a bit of a pity, since ­ although his huge stylistic debt to Young is always apparent, even when he’s speaheading Machito’s Afro Cubans ­ he is a powerful individual presence, whether he’s heading up his own quartet (completed by pianist Gene De Novi, bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Stan Levey), soloing over the sophisticated sound of the Claude Thornhill Orchestra or blending with wonderfully compatible partners such as trombonist Kai Winding or vibes player Cal Tjader.

Most of this material was recorded in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and outright bop is clearly not Moore’s forte, but when he’s allowed his head in congenial company on suitable material, he’s well worth investigating, and these two CDs contain much great music, redolent of its time yet still sounding fresh today.