(Bop, Cool) The Jazz Modes (w/ Julius Watkins, Charlie Rouse) - The Most Happy Fella - 1957, MP3, 320 kbps

Originally released on Atlantic in 1957, the short-lived bop quintet les Jazz Modes performed excerpts from Frank Loesser's third Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella. This tasteful date features Julius Watkins on French horn (and pre-Thelonious Monk) and tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, accompanied by pianist Gildo Mahones, bassist, Martin Rivera, drummer Ron Jefferson, and, for this date only, vocalist Eileen Gilbert was added on "My Heart Is So Full of You." Highlights from the nine excerpts of the play include the breezy up-tempo treatments of "Standing on the Corner," "Joey, Joey, Joey," and the contemplative melancholia of "Somebody Somewhere." While it didn't match the huge success of such similarly attempted jazzed-up Broadway hits like Shelly Manne's My Fair Lady or the Miles Davis and Gil Evans collaboration on Porgy and Bess, the complex synchronization of Watkins' fluid mellow tone with the moderately choppy tenor lines of Rouse make for a lyrical bop/cool jazz hybrid that still sounds fresh.