MY NORTHERN SKIES

Featured Album | 388

John Lewis | Cool! | Fontana 683 256 JCL | 1964

The long serving member of the Modern Jazz Quartet occasionally ventured into extracurricular activities and released several solo albums, or at least group albums under his leadership. Cool! was his second album originally released on the Pacific Jazz label in February 1965 under the title Brief Encounter, subtitled 2° East – 3° West, which refers to the mix of east and west coast musicians involved, and with a different sleeve and running order. The six selections includes just the one Lewis original “Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West”, designed to give each of the musicians a little breathing space, those musicians being Jim Hall on guitar, Bill Perkins on tenor sax, Percy Heath on bass and Chico Hamilton on drums. For those wishing to further investigate, you may inadvertently stumble upon the lingerie pages of a famous British department store during your search, which I think is fair warning. Notable tracks include the lengthy “Almost Like Being in Love”, which is promoted to opener here (though the final track on the original), and “Love Me or Leave Me” the opener on the original.