Jasmine Records Bill COLEMAN - A Smooth One - 'Live' In Manchester, May 1967 CD

Trumpeter Coleman, strongly influenced by Louis Armstrong, belongs to that generation of jazz musicians (He was born in 1904) who set the standard for instrumental performances in the 1930's. But for the fact that he spent 80% of his career in Europe he would today be one of the icons of early jazz, comparable in stature to Coleman Hawkins, Red Allen or Benny Carter. This CD recorded in England in 1967, finds him in great form, not at all enfeebled by advancing age. Listen to him on the old warhorse Indiana, a song he must have played a thousand times before this: he effortlessly spins off four hot choruses, sings a couple more, and then, after a piano interlude, takes it out with a pair of choruses that are like an instruction manual on swing and swinging. A welcome release.