Herbie Mann Live at the Village Gate (1961). If you like your bop hard, with just a hint of Latin, but with a double-dollop of smooth & cool, this performance is for you. Here's the performance that put Herbie on the map. There's only three songs on this epic album:
Comin' Home Baby; an elegant bossa version of
Summertime (my fav btw!); and
It Ain't Necessarily So.
Another Mann performance I really like - even if it may not appeal to the real jazz purists - is his 1969 piece
Memphis Underground. It's an addictively happy 7-minute number that says "Good Times!"
To my ears it anticipates (in some ways) that
bit o' funk/rock/'god knows what else' place Miles Davis would take things a few years later.
Give a listen:
