Mort Weiss: The B3 and Me – Live at Voice of the Arts – SMS Jazz, 66:00 ****:
(Mort Weiss, clarinet; Joey DeFrancesco, Hammond B3; Craig Ebner, guitar; Byron Landham, drums)
As DeFrancesco observed, “He plays his ass off!” With this pair of releases on his own label, 71-year-old clarinetist extraordinaire Mort Weiss has a half dozen CDs out, and it’s hard to believe he took a 40-year break from music performing – some of that time in the penitentiary. Check out a great interview with him at All About Jazz.
Mort has a whole new career on the West Coast, playing and recording with such heavyweights as DeFrancesco and Sam Most. His idol is Buddy DeFranco, but he has a more biting tone than that clarinet light. He got back into playing again after all those years upon receiving a junk mail announcement that a local college was holding auditions for a jazz ensemble. Eventually he was playing with DeFrancesco, and he felt playing at the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival in Portland, OR was a big break for him.
The Sam Most CD has Weiss creating some of the most enjoyable West Coast jazz I’ve heard in some time. You wouldn’t believe him on Charlie Parker’s Donna Lee; I don’t think even Artie Shaw could have negotiated that! Most has lost most of his voice, but on I Got It Bad he turns in a fantastic flute solo after this brief vocal that more than makes up for it. The CD itself is one of those 5-inch kiddie-LP-looking jobs with four fake bands on one side and a smooth black surface on the playing side – what a kick!
The TrackList for that one is: Four, I’m Old-Fashioned, Night in Tunisia, I Got It Bad, Jitterbug Waltz, Poor Butterfly, With a Song in my Heart, My One and Only Love, Medley: Donna Lee/Blues in the Closet.
The DeFrancesco CD has a long and checkered history which Mort explains in the liner note booklet. Notice on the front it says “Featuring a very special guest,” but doesn’t mention DeFrancesco until the back of the jewel box. The hassle involves Concord Records getting upset about their recording artist being on a competing label. It took a few years to straighten everything out, but at considerable cost to Weiss, here it is – and it’s a winner. It is actually the second session Weiss did with DeFrancesco and both of them mark the first time the clarinet/B3 combo has ever been recorded. It sounds like a duo made in heaven. This quartet is quite a different breed from your normal B3 Trio with just guitar. Weiss kicks off with another Charlie Parker tongue-twister: Ornithology, and returns with Billy’s Bounce later. Dig the full-voiced Hammond treatment DeFrancesco puts out on Love Letters. Falling in Love with Love is an over 11-minute foray with some memorable solos by all involved. Great stuff – no foolin’!
TrackList: Ornithology, I Thought About You, Falling in Love With Love, Love Letters, Billy’s Bounce, Autumn Leaves, Yesterdays, You Stepped Out of a Dream, Fools Rush In.
– John Henry
