You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! (Remastered 2023) Curtis Counce

• 1Complete (Remastered 2023)05:54
• 2How Deep Is The Ocean? (Remastered 2023)06:40
• 3Too Close For Comfort (Remastered 2023)05:38
• 4Mean To Me (Remastered 2023)04:32
• 5Stranger In Paradise (Remastered 2023)07:05
• 6Counceltation (Remastered 2023)06:03
• 7Big Foot (Remastered 2023)09:04
• Total Runtime44:56

Info for You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! (Remastered 2023)

Remastered by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman, the sound is a bit more intimate, warmer, and tamer at the very top than usual, yet retains its explosive dynamics with pleasant tonal balance. The trumpet and tenor timbres are to die for; Counce's bass is–not surprisingly–well captured leaning more towards a full roundish wooden tone rather than hyper-articulated; the soft swirling brush rattling of the snare's skin as well as a few startling staccato strikes of its metal rim is refreshing in today's sad world of over and overt compression, and a hard reminder of how perfected the art of recording was already attained back in 1956!

"Although the title and even the cover photo have been changed, this album reissue has the same music as was earlier issued as Counceltation; the "bonus cut" "Woody 'n You" has also been reissued on Sonority. In any case, the program features the underrated but talented Curtis Counce Quintet of 1956-1957, a group consisting of the bassist/leader, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Carl Perkins, and drummer Frank Butler. Counce contributed two originals but otherwise the band sticks to jazz standards, with some of the best moments being on "Too Close for Comfort," "Mean to Me," and Charlie Parker's "Big Foot." (Scott Yanow, AMG)

Curtis Counce, bass
Jack Sheldon, trumpet
Harold Land, tenor saxophone
Carl Perkins, piano
Frank Butler, drums

Digitally remastered

Curtis Counce
A fine bassist, Curtis Counce (1926-63) is best remembered for the well-documented quintet that he led during 1956-1958.

Born in Kansas City, Counce studied violin and tuba early on before settling on the string bass. He went on the road when he was 16, playing with the Nat Towles Band in Omaha. After some freelancing, Counce moved to Los Angeles in 1945, working with Johnny Otis and making his recording debut the following year with Lester Young. During the next decade he was a key member of the West Coast jazz scene, recording as a sideman with Shelly Manne, Lyle Murphy, Teddy Charles, Clifford Brown, and many others.

In 1956, Counce organized a quintet comprised of trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Carl Perkins, and drummer Frank Butler. During a 15-month period, they recorded enough material to fill up four CDs, all of which were originally released by Contemporary and fall stylistically between West Coast cool jazz and hard bop.

Landslide is most notable for Land’s title cut and Gerald Wiggins’s “Sonar.” You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce (originally known as Counceltation) has five jazz standards (including “Too Close for Comfort” and Charlie Parker’s “Big Foot”) plus two Counce originals. Carl’s Blues, which was dedicated to Carl Perkins who died shortly before the album was released, also mixes standards (including “Nica’s Dream” and “Love Walked In”) with originals such as the drummer’s “The Butler Did It.” The music on Sonority, consisting of previously unreleased material and alternate takes, was not released until decades later with Gerald Wilson in Sheldon’s spot on some numbers.

With a slightly different personnel, the Curtis Counce Quintet recorded a final album for the Dooto label before breaking up in 1958. The bassist continued working in the Los Angeles area until his premature death in 1963 from a heart attack.

This album contains no booklet.