Bebop was a wonderful development in jazz, but a few things were lost when it became the default jazz genre and shifted the music's orientation away from the dancehall and toward the club and concert hall. One of the things that was lost was the sweet and joyful spirit of the hot jazz and small-ensemble swing bands of the 1920s and 1930s. That spirit was never lost entirely, of course, but those styles went into serious decline after the mid-'40s. One of the diehards of pre-bop jazz was the great tenor saxophonist
Bud Freeman, who is memorialized on this album that brings together live tracks from a 1976 stint in an unidentified Dublin club, with two different local rhythm sections. The program consists not merely of standards, but of genuine chestnuts: "The Man I Love," "Tea for Two," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "I Got Rhythm" -- this is some of the most well-covered material in the swing book. Nor does
Freeman bring anything especially new or original to this hoary material. Instead, what he brings is an absolutely delightful, warm, and exuberant musical personality, and an almost palpable joy at having the opportunity to play these classic compositions with his Irish colleagues. On tracks like "The Man I Love" and his jaunty, almost cheeky rendition of "Tea for Two," his chesty tone and his choppy, energetic phrasing fall somewhere between swing and jump blues, with little tastes of old-school vibrato fluttering at the ends of his longer phrases. There are no real ballads here; almost everything is played uptempo, with that same wonderful, joyful flavor. Highly recommended to all fans of trad jazz. ~ Rick Anderson