Alberta Clipper

• Artist: Chuck Wayne & Tom Butts
• Rating:
• Release Date: 1997
• Total Time: 42:07
• Genre: Jazz

Review

This was guitarist Chuck Wayne's last recording in a long and celebrated career. During the late '40s and early '50s he was a member of the George Shearing Quintet, playing an important role in giving that group its distinctive chamber music sound. The guitarist was known for his distinctively mellow, clean playing, never engaging in heavy chordal smearing which could have distorted the melody. He stays on that course with Alberta Clipper. This session with tenor man Tom Butts recalls those fine '70s sessions when the guitar player was with another tenor sax man of note, Zoot Sims. Alberta Clipper features jazz and classic standards as well as four Wayne originals. While none of the latter will especially last, there are nonetheless very pleasant pieces on which Wayne and Butts comport themselves with flair and verve. The waltz "Diane" and the musicians' playing on it are especially tasty and tasteful. Butts' debt to Stan Getz is heard especially with his gentle, intelligent improvising and sparkling cadenzas on "Alone Together." Wayne and fellow guitarist Augustine Digiorgio also combine for an absorbing exchange of ideas on "Alone Together," making this track one of the album's highlights. Wayne could play with dazzling speed, as his fast fingering on "Butterfingers" demonstrates. He is anything but clumsy with this piece whose name implies otherwise.

But most of all, Wayne's final session in the studio reminds us that he was an artist of impeccable jazz credentials. Perusing the list of the jazz artists he performed with, one is struck by the diversity of styles to which this consummate sideman was able to accommodate. In addition to Woody Herman, Shearing, and Sims, Wayne shared the studio or stage with Dizzy Gillespie, Jack Teagarden, Coleman Hawkins, and Sarah Vaughan, to name only a few. Alberta Clipper is an appropriate testimonial to the guitar mastery of this fine guitarist, and also serves as an introduction to the extraordinarily talented Tom Butts. Recommended. ~ Dave Nathan, Rovi

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