Paul Desmond - Pure Desmond

Cool jazz alto saxophone. A sultry air of smooth and slick.  It bounces off the walls and ceilings of train stations and into hotels and nightclubs.  Like Lisa Simpson as she blows off orchestra for be-bop, it is enticing.  Rock and blues guitarists created the wah-wah pedal to try to emulate the wail of the alto sax and failed brilliantly. In its purist form the alto sax finds voice in cool jazz.

Ask any professional jazz saxophonist, any street-corner smooth jazz wannabe with a sense of history and hearing, “who is your musical hero?”  You will hear one name over and over - Paul Desmond.  That Desmond is the master and the benchmark some 34 years after his death is rather amazing. Although best known for penning “Take Five,” the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s greatest hit, his alto sax epitomizes West Coast cool jazz.

CTI has done aficionados of the great cool jazzmaster a favor with release of their Master Series remastered reissue of Desmond’s1975 Pure Desmond.  Here is Desmond near the end of his life playing with admirers and aspirers removed from the Dave Brubeck Quartet.  On this release Desmond plays with a living legend, jazz double bassist Ron Carter; the late Modern Jazz Quartet drummer Connie Kay; and Canadian jazz guitarist Ed Bickert.  The album is precise and contains beautiful instrumental cool jazz renditions of Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Django Reinhardt and Antonio Carlos Jobim gems.  In addition, the quartet preserves the sound of the seventies in its rendition of Johnny Mandel’s and Mike Altman’s hit, the “Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless),” which opened and closed each episode of the top TV show of the time.   

What does one say about Desmond?  Around town he was a ladies’ man chemically dependent on Dewar’s Scotch Whisky and Pall Mall cigarettes.  He dabbled in psychedelics with Timothy Leary and Jack Kerouac, and he created some of the best alto sax smooth jazz recordings ever made.  Desmond died of lung cancer at the age of 53.  His life, and this album, are best exemplified by this saying attributable to Anonymous:

The purpose of life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave with a well-preserved body, but rather to Slide in Sideways, completely used up, yelling and screaming, what a ride!

Thanks Paul wherever you are.

- Old School

Buy here:  Pure Desmond (CTI Records 40th Anniversary Edition)
Buy here mp3: Pure Desmond (CTI Records 40th Anniversary Edition - Original recording remastered)