Blues Bag

RELEASE
1964
LABEL
Koch International
GENRES
Jazz, Bop

Album Review

For this unusual set, reissued on CD in 2000, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco is exclusively heard on bass clarinet while joined by drummer Art Blakey and an interesting group of players, some of who were with Blakey's Jazz Messengers at the time. DeFranco, Blakey, pianist Victor Feldman, and bassist Victor Sproles are featured as a quartet on four numbers while the other three songs add trombonist Curtis Fuller and either Lee Morgan or Freddie Hill on trumpet. The seven selections are all bluish with many of them actually being blues. Highlights include "Straight No Chaser," John Coltrane's "Cousin Mary," Ornette Coleman's "Blues Connotation," and Leonard Feather's "Twleve Tone Blues." This is intriguing music which makes one wish that Buddy DeFranco still played bass clarinet now and then.
Scott Yanow, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Blues Bag
  2. Rain Dance
  3. Straight, No Chaser
  4. Cousin Mary
  5. Blues Connotation
  6. Kush
  7. Twelve Tone Blues