I listened to disc 4 of this great set twice between yesterday and today (stolen moments! I usually don't get to listen much at all over the weekend.)
Jo Jones on the first session is just so easy breezy and dancing with grace and draws my attention. And on the second session Arvell Shaw commands with his drive and full sound, he was playing with Armstrong as well still at this time and that energy is brought right here.
Teddy Wilson is just astonishingly good on these Verve trio recordings. He makes everything sound so easy, you miss the reworkings of the harmony that just swim in waves and his entire performance of a tune is a calculated journey that one can enjoy on so many levels. I kept thinking of Thelonious Monk here too. . .something in the way his two hands interacted and the simmering that leads into a run up or down the keyboard. . . . The earliest Monk I have heard reminded me of Wilson, and Duke. . . . There's no vacuum packing in jazz, things seep in and out.
Next up is this, the second one I have bought of this trio. I just love Berger--and I hear a lot of harmelodic influence here, but that is also possibly the sonority of Blackwell's past-present-future battery of beats.