Gene Quill

In the 1950s, the alto sax didn’t get very much louder than Gene Quill, a hard-edged soloist who could rival Jackie McLean and frequent-partner Phil Woods when it found intensity, enthusiasm, and hard bop aggression. Like Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt or Dexter Gordon and Wardell Grey on tenor, Woods and Quill (referred to as “Phil & Quill”) frequently involved in celebrated alto fights that exemplified musical sportsmanship at its finest. Because Quill was therefore tireless and enthusiastic a new player in the 1950s (when his fights with Woods had been recorded by Prestige and RCA), the altoist was an all natural sideman for such high-volume jazzmen as Gene Krupa, Quincy Jones, and Friend DeFranco. But Quill, who documented for Roost and Dawn by himself dates, certainly experienced no issue playing melodically, and he was in extremely melodic configurations when used in Claude Thornhill’s big band and Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Music group from 1960-1962. Ironically, a guy who, to numerous, epitomized hard bop became softer and much more introspective within the ’60s, occasionally bringing in your thoughts the great and lyrical alto playing of Lee Konitz and Artwork Pepper without sounding like he was consciously imitating either. Quill is at extremely illness over the last many years of his lifestyle, when he experienced brain harm and incomplete paralysis. Regrettably, the majority of Quill’s are a head wasn’t reissued on Compact disc within the U.S. in the later ’80s or early to mid-’90s.