The Quarantined Jazz Voyager

As I go about my city travels I notice how lax people are with masking and social distancing, having their self-centered need to rush to the lives they knew before the pandemic hit. This week I am selecting  an album that has been a classic and one of my favorites since the day I first put on the turntable. It’s the 1965 studio recording Angel Eyes by saxophonist Gene Ammons released on the Prestige label.

The album was recorded at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Two separate sessions compiled the album, tracks 1, 2, 4 & 5 were recorded on June 17, 1960 and tracks 3 & 6 on September 5, 1962. The September session was one of Ammons’ final ones before serving a long drug-related prison sentence.

Track List | 36:25

1. Gettin’ Around (Gene Ammons) ~ 6:46
2. Blue Room (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers) ~ 5:34
3. You Go to My Head (J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie) ~ 5:55
4. Angel Eyes (Earl Brent, Matt Dennis) ~ 8:45
5. Water Jug (Frank Wess) ~ 5:10
6. It’s the Talk of the Town (Jerry Livingston, Al J. Neiburg, Marty Symes) ~ 4:15

• Gene Ammons ~ tenor saxophone
• Frank Wess ~ flute (tracks 1, 2 and 4), tenor saxophone (track 5)
• Johnny “Hammond” Smith ~ organ (tracks 1, 2, 4 & 5)
• Mal Waldron (tracks 3 & 6) ~ piano
• Doug Watkins (tracks 1, 2, 4 & 5), Wendell Marshall (tracks 3 & 6) ~ bass
• Art Taylor (tracks 1, 2, 4 & 5), Ed Thigpen (tracks 3 & 6) ~ drums

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