Mike Cuozzo

Within the haunting final scene from the film The Conversation, the type performed by Gene Hackman rips his entire apartment to parts searching for surveillance devices, then stands within the rubble and blows a tenor saxophone single. If this unhappy snoop using a penchant for jazz been around in true to life, a great and useful pal for him to create will be Mike Cuozzo, also a tenor saxophonist who still left professional music to are a service provider in NJ. Cuozzo’s group of carpenters, who have been available to focus on building tasks through the period the film was occur, might have restored the house using the enjoyable accompaniment of the tenor saxophone duel, maybe a edition of “Learning You.” Cuozzo’s real career, or areas of it, might seem as much of the fantasy to 1 incredibly common band of music artists in jazz, the section users or eternal sidemen who by no means get a opportunity to produce a documenting under their very own name. Reed and brass players who arrived up through the big music group era from the ’30s and ’40s had been particularly more likely to fall into this type of trap; from then on, some had been lucky to get employment whatsoever unless they wished to rock and roll out. Functioning or not really, many music artists will fantasize in what their lives have been like if indeed they experienced done another thing instead. Cuozzo, a fresh Jersey boy right from the start, worked continuously for bandleaders such as for example Joe Marsala and Elliot Lawrence through the entire ’40s — but was after that able to make use of that like a stepping-stone never to only slice an recording but to own it turn out on Savoy. This label, incredibly warm with jazz buffs within the ’50s, offers continued to control respect, promising a particular make of unmatchable musical integrity. 1956 was the entire year of Savoy’s Mighty Mike launch. Mighty Mouse ended up being just half as elusive because the tenor guy, whose freelance musical possibilities were not offering the sort of constant income he preferred. 1956 was also the entire year of Cuozzo’s additional famous documenting, a collaboration using the Costa-Burke Trio helmed by pianist Eddie Costa and bassist Vinnie Burke. Mike Cuozzo using the Costa-Burke Trio originally arrived for the Jubilee imprint; as much as four following reissues possess fostered a misunderstanding that these music artists got back jointly in the past due ’80s for a fresh project.