The focus of this 1954 set is a seldom-heard session that
Ada Moore recorded for
Charles Mingus' Debut Records label in 1954. The lineup is certainly nothing to complain about;
Moore is joined by guitarist
Tal Farlow, bassist
Oscar Pettiford, and alto saxman John La Porta (among others), and Mingus helps with the arrangements.
Moore has a soulful delivery that is somewhere between
Carmen McRae and
Sarah Vaughan, although
Jazz Workshop, Vol. 3 is more abstract than what either of them were doing in 1954. The arrangements combine jazz with European chamber music, and
Moore's risk-taking pays off on material that ranges from "The Man I Love" and
Billy Strayhorn's "Something to Live For" to the folk song "Lass from the Low Country." Meanwhile, "The Devil Is a Woman" is a moody
Moore original that almost sounds like a combination of "Black Coffee" and "Blues in the Night." Like much of the music that
the Modern Jazz Quartet was providing at the time,
Jazz Workshop, Vol. 3 manages to be classical-influenced without sacrificing the feeling of the blues. This session didn't do much for
Moore commercially, but it's worth checking out if you appreciate the third stream experiments of the 1950s. ~ Alex Henderson