The Red Door (...Remember Zoot Sims)
Tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton has, over the course of some 30 recordings for Concord Jazz, proven himself a key proponent of Lester Young-style swing. So it's no surprise to have Hamilton--with John "Bucky" Pizzarelli--present this intimate tribute to Zoot Sims, who was widely acknowledged as a lifelong devotee of the Lester Young languid, breathy tenor sax style. Though Hamilton is a relative youngster, Pizzazrelli is a swing vet, a 70-something player who spent decades playing television music before cracking out in the 1970s with Benny Goodman and Zoot Sims, among others. As a pair, Pizzarelli and Hamilton play with all Zoot's heartfelt, slow-dawning emotion, from the wispy romance of "It Had to Be You" to Pizzarelli's hard-hitting, double-time strum solo on "Just You, Just Me." Listened to in an open room, this is relatively quiet music on the surface. But up close, it's beat-rich, with hopping rhythms handled by Pizzarelli's seventh string (allowing him to play bass lines). Moreover, it's delightfully precise in presenting Hamilton's tenor sax as a fluid thing of beauty. With Hamilton and Pizzarelli's newest and the recent Blue Note reissue ofJazz Alive!, a 1959 Sims super-session with Phil Woods, Al Cohn, and Mose Allison, Zoot is ready for a renaissance.--Andrew Bartlett