Veteran tenor
Flip Phillips is heard leading a jam session during what was dubbed the 1986 Floating Jazz Festival since the music took place on the S.S. Norway somewhere in the Caribbean Sea.
Phillips and his fellow tenors
Buddy Tate,
Al Cohn and
Scott Hamilton (along with pianst
John Bunch, guitarist
Chris Flory, bassist
Major Holley and drummer
Chuck Riggs) clearly had a good time stretching out on the five pieces (which all sport fairly basic chord changes); fluegelhornist
Clark Terry dropped by and joins in on three of the pieces. Unfortunately the liner notes do not tell who solos when but veteran collectors should be able to tell the tenors apart. The only minus to this CD is a surprisingly boring monologue by
Phillips (one of Chiaroscuro's few unsuccessful "Jazzspeaks") at the conclusion of this disc. However his nine minutes of talking is preceded by 64 minutes of hot jamming, making this CD easily recommended to fans of Jazz at the Philharmonic and straightahead jazz. ~ Scott Yanow