1959, August/September - USA, NYC
NN magazine
'N' All That Jazz - New LP's capture Golden Moments
by George Kanzler

The jazz fan and record collector has been doubly blessed over the last decade; first, with the copious amount of reissues (often in bargain two-fer form) of jazz recordings from all eras, but mostly from the advent of the LP disc in the 1950s; second, with the continuing discovery of heretofore NN or unissued recordings made at clubs and concerts.

Two notable examples of that latter category are now available, one documenting the meeting of two native Jerseyans on stage at a short-lived but legendary Greenwich Village nightclub, the other chronicling Miles Davis at a club in his hometown in a year he spent little time in recording studio. Golden Moments, Tony Scott (Muse records), features the Morristown-born clarinetist in the company of a rhythm section led by the late Plainfield native, pianist Bill Evans, and filled out by bassist Jimmy Garrison - of John Coltrane Quartet fame) - and drummer Pete LaRoca.

The album is comprised of tapes made by Scott himself when this extraordinary quartet worked at the Showplace - club that is best known in jazz history as the home of Charles Mingus' most extraordinary quartet, the one featuring reedman Eric Dolphy, and trumpeter Ted Curson - in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1959.
It is hard to think of two post-swing era musicians with more different styles and temperaments than Scott and Evans.
The clarinetist was and is a forceful, extroverted player with a larger-than-life sound on his instrument.
The pianist was one of the most celebrated stylistic introverts in jazz, a moody player who could ruminate with cerebral intensity over the harmonic intricacies of a ballad. Yet the two complement each other wonderfully here, Evans emerging from his shell to meet Scott's challenges, Scott proving to be as harmonically sophisticated as Evans. The two long sections captured here, the bop-blues, Walkin' and the surprising soulful standard My Melancholy Baby convincingly prove what a truly unique group this quartet was.