Buddy DeFranco - Pretty Moods (1954) {Verve Japan SHM-CD Mini LP UCCV-9484 rel 2013}

Reissue. Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and 24 bit digital remastering. Cardboard sleeve. Mono. David Stone Martin 10 inch Collector's Selection Series. Buddy DeFranco is one of the great clarinetists of all time and, until the rise of Eddie Daniels, he was indisputably the top clarinetist to emerge since 1940. It was DeFranco's misfortune to be the best on an instrument that after the swing era dropped drastically in popularity and, unlike Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, he has never been a household name for the general public.

When he was 14, DeFranco won an amateur swing contest sponsored by Tommy Dorsey. After working with the big bands of Gene Krupa (1941-1942) and Charlie Barnet (1943-1944), he was with TD on and off during 1944-1948. DeFranco, other than spending part of 1950 with Count Basie's septet, was mostly a bandleader from then on. Among the few clarinetists to transfer the language of Charlie Parker onto his instrument, DeFranco has won a countless number of polls and appeared with the Metronome All-Stars in the late '40s. He recorded frequently in the '50s (among his sidemen were Art Blakey, Kenny Drew, and Sonny Clark) and participated in some of Norman Granz's Verve jam session. During 1960-1963 DeFranco led a quartet that also featured the accordion of Tommy Gumina and he recorded an album with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers on which he played bass clarinet. Work, however, was difficult to find in the '60s, leading DeFranco to accept the assignment of leading the Glenn Miller ghost band (1966-1974). He has found more artistic success co-leading a quintet with Terry Gibbs off and on since the early '80s and has recorded throughout the decades for many labels.

Illustrator David Stone Martin was one of the most prolific and influential graphic designers of the postwar era, creating over 400 album covers. Much of his work spotlighted jazz, with his signature hand-drawn, calligraphic line perfectly capturing the energy and spontaneity of the idiom. Born David Livingstone Martin in Chicago in 1913, he later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and began his career as an assistant to the social realist painter Ben Shahn, designing murals during the 1933 World's Fair. Martin spent the remainder of the decade as art director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and served during World War II as an artist/correspondent for Life magazine. After returning to the U.S. he mounted a career as a freelance artist, landing advertising gigs for clients including the Disc Company of America, CBS Television, and Lincoln Center; in 1948, he also began teaching at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art, followed in 1950 by a year at New York City's Workshop School of Advertising and Editorial Art. Martin entered music illustration through his longtime friendship with producer Norman Granz, designing label art for Granz's Verve, Norgran, Clef, and Down Home imprints as well as hundreds of now-classic cover paintings for acts including Count Basie, Art Tatum, Gene Krupa, and Lionel Hampton. Martin also created a series of designs for the pianist Mary Lou Williams, with whom he enjoyed a torrid affair. Martin's work has exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and others. He died of pneumonia in New London, CT, on March 6, 1992.

Musicians
Buddy DeFranco - clarinet
Sonny Clark - piano
Gene Wright - bass
Bobby White - drums

David Stone Martin - Artwork

Recorded in NYC, April 7, 1954

Track Listing
01 - Tenderly
02 - Lover Man
03 - Deep Purple
04 - Yesterdays
05 - If I Should Lose You