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| 5.038 Ft
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| 1. | Cobb's Idea
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| 2. | Sweet Georgia Brown
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| 3. | Just A Closer Walk With Thee
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| 4. | Body And Soul
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| 5. | I Got Rhythm
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| 6. | Final words by Arnett Cobb
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Jazz
Arnett Cobb - tenor sax
Rein de Graaff - piano
Jacques Schols - bass
John Engels - drums Profile
When Arnett Cobb gets on the bandstand there is always a hush from the audience - especially the few people on hand who've never seen him before or haven't seen him in 30 years. When Cobb hobbles up to the stage on crutches and props himself up, half the time he doesn't look as if he's got the energy to blow his nose, let alone play the tenor saxophone. Finally he has himself comfortably balanced, he has his horn where he wants it, he begins to sway and pop out his eyes and play. And the walls come tumbling down. For Arnett Cobb possesses one of the most fierce, driving, rough-and-tumble saxophone tones on the market today. He roars like a hurricane, he barks like a herd of wild dogs, he growls like a pride of lions. Don't let those crutches fool you - there are few stronger things in music than the tenor playing of Arnett Cobb. When Arnett Cobb was dubbed "The Wild Man Of The Tenor Sax" it was a sobriquet well earned.
As I write these notes I realize that this year, 1983, Arnett Cobb is celebrating his 50th anniversary as a professional musician. It was in 1933 that the 15-year-old Cobb joined Frank Davis' band in Houston, Texas, Cobb's home. He went from there to the territory bands of Chester Boone and Milton Larking. Then, in 1942 - 40 years before this live date was waxed - Arnett Cobb joined forces with Lionel Hampton.
Hamp was looking for a replacement for Illinois Jacquet. All he had to do was find a gutsy, blues-drenched, ex-troverted, crowd-rousing tenor saxophonist, who could play chorus after chorus until his arms fell off and he couldn't be heard over the din of appreciative fans. Arnett Cobb fit the bill perfectly.
After five years with Hampton, Cobb went out on his own and showed the world that while there wasn't anybody more exciting on the tenor, there also were few who couldn't handle ballads with such romantic aplomb.
Cobb could tear the house down, but he could also purr like a contented tabby. His audience grew and grew. There is no way to measure the affect that Cobb, on those late-40s dates, had on the music that was to come - rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and soul. By the end of the 1940's, at the height of his popularity, Cobb began having the health problems that continue to plague him. A spinal operation sidelined him briefly, but then he was back on the road. earning himself new fans on the burgeoning rock and roll circuit. Then in April of 1956, while driving through Connecticut, Arnett Cobb blacked out at the wheel of his car, collided with a tree and shattered both of his legs.
The subsequent 15 years found Arnett Cobb playing - when his health allowed - in relative obscurity. He would surface here and there - in Philadelphia, managing the Club Ebony in Houston, at the odd concert appearance in Texas. Finally, in 1972, keyboard whiz Milt Buckner, another Hampton alumnus, helped convince Cobb to make his first trip to Europe. He hasn't looked back since.
The past 16 years have been good ones for Arnett Cleophus Cobb. He played Europe a number of times - leading his own bands, on Hampton reunions, in various saxophone combinations - and has become a popular attraction on the American circuit. His saxophone prowess is undiminished - he easily brings an audience to a frenzy and just as easily can get them weeping in their beer over a sensual ballad. But that's not all, because Arnett Cobb is not just a man who playes the saxophone - he's a man who loves to play the saxophone. He loves it so much that I've seen stage managers ask him to please end the set - the club has got to close. On the European festival circuit, when most of the veterans have gone to bed, Arnett Cobb can be found jamming with the locals in a corner saloon. He prowls festivals looking for an invitation to join a set. And don't think Cobb just wants to join in and breeze along - he is always out to mow down any tenor player in his path. The competitiveness, the joie de vivre, the absolute happiness the man displays every moment he's on stage makes an Arnett Cobb performance a special joy. A couple of years ago Lionel Hampton assembled an all-Star band for a European tour and then had to drop out of the tour due of illness. However, he sent the unit out with his two star tenormen - Cobb and Jaquet - to make up for any disappointment that Hampton's non-appearance would cause. Now this was truly an all - star band - Ricky Ford. Kai Winding, Curtis Fuller, Benny Bailey, etc. - but when those two Texas longhorns started butting heads, there was no stopping them. The other musicians had to steal solo space whenever they could get it, but the audience - on the night I saw the band - was goggle-eyed from the deepfried tenor playing from those two titans.
This album - Amett Cobb Live - catches the wild man at his best: in front of an audience. He is obviously loose and obviously enjoying himself. Backed by a sympathetic rhythm section - Rein de Graaff. Jacques Schols, and John Engels - Cobb cooks like a demon on this set of blues and standards.
Cobb's Idea opens the album and it's the tenorman's meat and potatoes - the old twelve-bar blues. Arnett growls and billows with a boozy swagger, while Rein de Graaff tosses in some boppish chords. The thing rocks and rolls - the pianist has some fun in the well-worn idiom, bassist Jacques Schols makes his blues credentials well-known, and Cobb honks out some spirited fours with trap man John Engels. The audience yelps in response.
Sweet Georgia Brown follows with Cobb's power unleashed - you can feel the wind and the rain in his playing. His solo is raw and lusty and smoking and he ends it with one of his favorite tags, "a-hunting we will go". The rhythm section then dismisses the notion that Americans have a stranglehold on the blues, as Arnett Cobb barks his encouragement. A performance con brio!
The second side opens with a durable gospel classic, Just A Closer Walk With Thee. Cobb displays his heart and soul here, but not without the dirty grift in his playing that would draw sidelong glances at a Southern Baptist church. Cobb's tone is a three-dimensional tone. Rein De Graaff testifies with some heavy chording and the thing has a tasty down-home ending.
Next comes the international anthem of the tenor saxophone, Body And Soul. Cobb's quavering vibrato on the melody is deep and smooth - there are breezes and canyons in his playing that he saves up for ballads. He's really a genuine romanticist, as you can hear. The acapella coda is also typical Arnett Cobb - there's a taste ofMoody's Mood, a dollop of Deep In The Heart Of Texas (you can hear Cobb tell the crowd, "That's where I'm from," after the quote) and some deep honks concluding with a pinch of Here We Go 'Round The Mulberry Bush, proving that there's more than a little corn on this Cobb.
The album concludes with I Got Rhythm, the Gershwin melody which launched a thousand jazz tunes. Cobb's lusty, steam-driven swing just takes over - the man wails. This is a positive, unbridled romp from one of the 100% originals in music. If you've finished listening to this without your leg shaking and your head bobbing and a stupid grin on your face then you need help, my friend.
Fifty years ago this world was a different place, but there are certain things that are still around from that old world that haven't changed. The tenor saxophone of Arnett Cobb is one of those things. Happy 50th anniversary, Arnett Cobb.
Arnett Cobb
Active Decades: '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s
Born: Aug 10, 1918 in Houston, TX
Died: Mar 24, 1989 in Houston, TX
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Texas Blues, Bop, Soul Jazz, Jump Blues, Jazz Blues, Mainstream Jazz, New York Blues, Regional Blues, Jazz Instrument, Trombone Jazz
A stomping Texas tenor player in the tradition of Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb's accessible playing was between swing and early rhythm & blues. After playing in Texas with Chester Boone (1934-1936) and Milt Larkin (1936-1942), Cobb emerged in the big leagues by succeeding Illinois Jacquet with Lionel Hampton's Orchestra (1942-1947). His version of "Flying Home No. 2" became a hit, and he was a very popular soloist with Hampton. After leaving the band, Cobb formed his own group, but his initial success was interrupted in 1948, when he had to undergo an operation on his spine. After recovering, he resumed touring. But a major car accident in 1956 crushed Cobb's legs and he was reduced to using crutches for the rest of his life. However, by 1959, he returned to active playing and recording. Cobb spent most of the 1960s leading bands back in Texas, but starting in 1973, he toured and recorded more extensively, including a tenor summit with Jimmy Heath and Joe Henderson in Europe as late as 1988. Arnett Cobb made many fine records through the years for such labels as Apollo, ColumbiaOkeh, Prestige (many of the latter are available on the OJC series), Black & Blue, Progressive, Muse, and Bee Hive.
---Scott Yanow, All Music Guide |
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