(Cool, Hard Bop) Bobby Jaspar - With George Wallington and Idrees Sulieman - 1957, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

BOBBY JASPAR is a young, Belgian-born flutist and tenor man with a considerable European reputation who intends to make America his home. From the outstanding evidence presented on this LP, America is already very much his musical home . . .
So much is made of the fact that jazz is this country's only-true-native-art-form (or something like that), that many of us find it strange when a non-American turns seriously to jazz. This of counse is nonsense. For we also make much of the role of jazz as out musical ambassador to the rest of the world. Our performers and records go out to Furope and beyond in great numbers, and presumably one purpose of this is to educate. Granted thai it is not easy for someone without first-hand knowledge of this country to comprehend fully a music that is genuinely and deeply a product of American life. But let's face it: it is obviously not easv for native-born Americans either. Millions of our fellow citizens are quite unable to distinguish between jazz and rock-and-roll, or between jazz and Alexander's ragtime Band; and how often have you squirmed at those peculiar non-musical newspaper uses of words like "bop." Quite a few Europeans are much better informed than that.
Playing jazz well is probably even more difficult than understanding it; and it may even be a legitimate source of wonder when a non-American succeeds at that. In play the music proficiently, and with mechanical skill, is one thing: a great many people learn foreign languages. But to sound right, to sound at home, lo be able lo improvise in context with American musicians—that is something else again. It is as exceedingly rare as reaching the stage of really being able lo think in a foreign tongue (rather than the usual tactics of starting with words in your native language and translating them in your head before you begin to speak).
In pre-modem jazz, there are few successful examples of this, or possibly none. The French and Dutch musicians who worked with Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and the like in the '30s were primarily supplying backgrounds for solo stars. The great g)psy guitarist, Django Rein-hardt, was associated almost entirely with the all-Euro-pean "Quintet of the Hot Club of France." But in recent years several younger musicians, principally in Sweden and France, have begun lo produce jazz of more than academic interest. There are of course successful pianists from Germany, England, France, and Japan. And now there is Bobby Jaspar, whose jazz appears to be quite thoroughly and astonishingly "idiomatically" American.
Except for ociasional guest shot ventures, most European jazzmen have stayed at home. And with all due respect, pianists, particularly those playing in a trio format, do not really have to face the major problems of integrating their music with that of others. So what Jaspar has done, although it sounds simple enough, is just about unique: on his regular job since coming lo this country, and also on this LP, he works on even terms with first-line American jazz artists, and it works out just fine.
Jaspar's regular affiliation has been with J. J. Johnson's quintet, and for this album he has chosen to work with two members of that group: bassist Wilbur Little, and the remarkable and unusual young drummer, Elvin Jones i the equall) talented brother of Hank and Thad). Also on hand are such highly desirable colleagues as George Wellington and Idrees Sulieman. Both are heavily experienced but still quite youthful veterans who have contributed importantly ever since the formative years of modern jazz.
Jaspar was born in Liege in February of 1926. He studied piano from the age of eleven, and at sixteen took up the clarinet, soon switching from that reed to tenor and then adding flute. At the end of World War II he was with American Army Special Services in Germany, and his jazz career actually got under wav in 1950, when he played with Henrie Renaud and then with Bernard Peitfer in Paris. He recorded frequently in Paris, both as a leader and with such as Chet Baker, Jimmy Raney and Andre Hodeir, the noted French composer-arranger-critic, who has been one of Bobby's strongest supporters for a number oi years now. Frоm 1954 to "56, Jaspar led his own quintet in Paris, and in 1955 both his group and Bobby himself (as a tenor man) placed first in the Jazz Hot magazine poll. In the Spring of 1950, when a great many people had come to share Hodeir's expressed opinion that Jaspar was the best jazz musician then playing in France, Bobby chose to make his move, coming to this country in April. Shortly thereafter, partly on the recommendation of Miles Davis, Jay Jay made him the other horn man in his newly formed group.
Those familiar with Jaspar's European work have noted a marked change since he has been here: originally he was strongly influenced by Slan Getz, but of late the "harder ' tenor sound and approach of the East Сoast jazzmen seems to have made the greatest impact on him. I If any comparison is to be made at this point, it probably should be to Zoot Sims.) As for flute, Bobby seems to be a warmer and more swinging performer on thai instrument than almost anyone else around.
Playing here in relaxed quartet and quintet frameworks, Bobby and his associates mix standards and their own originals—including a blues entitled Doublemint that may turn out to be part of a Chewing Gum Suite by Sulieman (he contributed a tune called Juiсу Fruit to Coleman Hawkins' recent Riverside album. The Hank Flies High). All in all, this LP should make it quile clear that Jaspar is not to be given any specially lenient evaluation as a non-native oddity. He doesn't need that. Bobby Jaspar can sland on his own as a highly qualified modern jazz voice.

01 - Seven Up.flac
02 - My Old Flame.flac
03 - All Of You.flac
04 - Doublemint.flac
05 - Before Dawn.flac
06 - Sweet Blanche.flac
07 - The Fuzz.flac
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