Featured Artist: Shelly Manne

CD Title: Steps To The Desert

Year: Reissued in 2004 - Originally Released in 1963

Record Label: Contemporary Records

Style: BeBop / Hard Bop

Musicians: Shelly Manne (drums), Shorty Rogers (flugelhorn & trumpet), Teddy Edwards (tenor sax), Victor Feldman (piano & vibes), Al Viola (guitar), Monty Budwig (bass)

Review: The subtitle is "Modern Jazz Versions of Favorite Jewish and Israeli Songs."

Jewish music and jazz! So what's the connection? Many pages of the Great American Songbook belong to Jewish songwriters: Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Rodgers, Arlen, and a host of others. In the mid-forties, trumpeter Sonny Berman hosted a session that led to the LP, "Sonny Berman - Beautiful Jewish Music." Sonny and most of the players were Jewish but the music sure wasn't! Today you may hear klezmer/jazz fusion or Israeli-influenced world music. Well, in the early sixties, two "Jewish Music" jazz sessions were recorded. In January 1963, Terry Gibbs cut "Terry Gibbs Plays Jewish Melodies in Jazz Time." A month earlier, Shelly Manne produced "My Son the Jazz Musician." The Manne LP, plus a few extra takes, makes up the current CD with its more serious title.

A wonderful jazz session. No mish mash. No puree. A tasty stew where you can identify the ingredients - Israeli, Yiddish, Jazz, Blues. For this you can credit Manne, who has been described as playing music - not drums, and his selection of musicians. Three arrangements were provided by Lennie Niehaus: a Mancini-flavored "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" that the Andrews Sisters might not recognize, and two Israeli songs - a triumphant "Bokrei Lachish" and the title track, which builds from a desert mood to impassioned swing. Teddy Edwards turns "Die Greene Koseene" (you can translate that!) into a bit of a swinger. Shorty Rogers swings the hora with "Hava Nagila' and treats "Zamar Nodad" as a joyful bossa. And then there are the songs that move you: "Exodus," "Yossel, Yossel," and "My Yiddishe Momme" which features a soulful solo by Edwards. There are a lot of solo highlights on this CD. One fine example is "Bokrei" where you can catch Rogers, Edwards, Feldman and Viola.

In his liner notes to the Berman album, Ira Gitler quotes Lennie Tristano (in reference to the harmonic-melodic aspects of jazz) as saying "Jewish cantors and gypsies sound more like it than anything from Africa." Debateable, perhaps. However, one thing is sure. To paraphrase those famous Levy's rye bread ads,"You don't have to be Jewish to love this CD." Shelly, thank you!

Tracks: Hava Nagila, Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, Yossel Yossel, Zamar Nodad, Bokrei Lachish, Tzena, Exodus, Die Greene Koseene, My Yiddishe Momme, Orchah Bamidbar (Steps To The Desert), Zamar Nodad (single edit), Exodus (single edit), Tzena (single edit), Hava Nagila (single edit)

Record Label Website: http://www.fantasyjazz.com

Reviewed by: Bill Falconer

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