Don Byas (tenor sax) and Slam Stewart (bass) in 1945. 1945, people! What? This is insane.
http://youtu.be/-0ypn2rWvFA
My thoughts on this:
About Bob Reynolds
Bob Reynolds is a jazz saxophonist and 3x GRAMMY Award-winning member of the instrumental supergroup Snarky Puppy. He's toured and recorded with John Mayer and released 11 albums as a solo artist. Bob teaches jazz improvisation and saxophone lessons through his Virtual Studio and an annual retreat for saxophonists.
I once played a concert with the bass player on this recording, he was in his eighties and a real sweetheart, Hall of Famer Slam Stewart, The story of this recording is the rest of the band got stuck in a snowstorm I think and with the audience all waiting, Don Byas and Slam decided to play it as a duet. They never would have done a duet otherwise. Byas was a technical genius and one of Bird’s influences. Mike Brecker said he was working on transcribing this and other Don Byas solos just before he passed on.
Wow! Thanks for that, Chris. Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing that snowstorm story. Totally forgot it went along with this performance. I am definitely going to transcribe some of this. Thank God for snowstorms.
another great post…thank you!
Fantastic. I could only find a couple of tracks. Is the whole show available anywhere?
I’m sure it is, although I’m not entirely sure where. If you dig it up (and this goes for other readers) please share it here.
The best I found was this:
Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/album/Bpfge5gog6lxytym7xyksd7h4yi/Various+Artists/Town+Hall+Concert+Volume+3
Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/album/61RdK5IaVRcAyGM0HkiuRO
The first two tracks are duo tracks. I couldn’t find anything with more duo work.
For those looking to follow along by reading, one reader sent me this transcription (thanks, Rich). http://chnani.perso.neuf.fr/ejma/images/releves/donbyas.html — as always, my policy on transcribing is that the “trans” is more important than the “scribing” and your best tool is to do it yourself…and only use something like this as a reference; a teacher’s edition, if you will.