Zoot Sims Quartet - 1983 - Amsterdam (de Meervaart)

Zoot Sims made one of his last Pablo recordings in New York ("Suddenly It's Spring": May 26, 1983) with Jimmy Rowles (p), George Mraz (b), and Akira Tana (d).

Less than three months later, now in Amsterdam and with Richard Wyands and Red Mitchell substituting for Rowles and Mraz, is this the closing concert on the first night of the International Jazz Festival Amsterdam (de Meervaart), Thursday August 11, 1983.

Sims had made one Pablo LP/CD with Wyands before ("The Innocent Years" in 1982) and the only officially recorded encounters of Sims and Mitchell before this date were the 1954 Gerry Mulligan Sextet and a 1955 Red Mitchell session. Mitchell would also play on Sims' last session in 1984 for the Sonet label.

From my own tapings of the Dutch radio broadcasts: the whole concert was recorded and later aired in three separate broadcasts. Opening and closing radio announcements are by the late Michiel de Ruyter.

Here are more than 75 minutes of delightful music by some veteran players. "Embraceable You" is a bass feature, "Sweet And Lovely" a piano feature, and "The Red Door" brings back the early Mulligan Concert Jazz Band days.

"Dream Dancing" is not complete (part of the end is missing), the first few bars of "Changes" are missing and the irregularity here at c. 2:30 is in my original tape.

Enjoy!


Musicians:
Zoot Sims (ts, ss), Richard Wyands (p), Red Mitchell (b), Akira Tana (d)

Track list:
01 Station announcements
02 Comes Love
03 I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone
04 The Shadow Waltz
05 Embraceable You
06 Tonight I Shall Sleep
07 The Red Door
08 Sweet And Lovely
09 Dream Dancing
10 Changes
11 Station announcements

Lineage:
FM > tape > recording, tracking and editing wav file in Audacity > CD-R > Wav > TLH (Flac 8, align on sector boundaries)

Audio quality: A- (FM)