Sahib Shihab: Sahib Shihab and the Danish Radio Jazz Group

Many jazz fans will know saxophonist and flautist Sahib Shihab primarily for his stint in the 1940s with Thelonious Monk, and his playing captured on Monk's Genius of Modern Music Blue Note sets. Keen-eyed perusers of liner notes, however, will know him as an able sideman on classic albums by John Coltrane, Quincy Jones, Art Blakey, Benny Golson, Milt Jackson and others. Shihab also recorded as a leader in the 1950s and 1960s with Savoy, Debut and Argo, before moving to Scandinavia, where jazz musicians were respected and where he could escape U.S. racial politics. He lived in Stockholm for a time before moving to Copenhagen in 1964, where he worked at Copenhagen Polytechnic and wrote scores for television, film and the theater. In 1965 he recorded an album of his own compositions with The Danish Radio Jazz Group, which included such future superstars as Palle Mikkelborg and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, for the Oktav label. As original copies of this LP go for $2,000-4,000, this new vinyl reissue by Paris label Sam Records—cut from the original master tapes and expertly pressed by Garcia & Co. in Marciac, France—is most welcome. The production is beautiful, with the original vintage flip-back sleeve lovingly recreated and an additional large photo from the sessions included as an insert, and the sound astonishingly good, with flawless, flat vinyl.

The charts are exciting and the tunes memorable, with particularly outstanding solos by Mikkelborg, Ørsted Pedersen, and the leader himself on baritone sax and flute on "Not Yet." Particularly fun is "Mai Ding," which starts with studio chatter, laughter, and exhortations from Shihab accompanied by his cowbell establishing the tricky rhythm, which is then ably picked up by drummer Alex Riel. This tune effectively alternates moody minor riffs with pop-style interludes that sound right out of a Quincy Jones chart. Ballad "Tenth Lament" is gorgeous and shows off both Shihab's arranging skills and the impressive playing of the Danish group, who are tight and produce a beautiful blended tone; the tune picks up the tempo midway through for a swinging groove driven by Ørsted Pedersen that underpins Shihab's baritone solo. "Harvey's Tune" features Shihab on flute, and he engages in some delightful Rahsaan Roland Kirk-esque vocal zooms as he begins his solo. Sam Records' reissue adds a short bonus track, "The Little French Girl," with a very capable vocal by Shihab himself; it is cute enough, but not of the same style as the main album; thankfully, it is added at the end of side two, so that it does not disrupt the flow.

Though it may seem like an obscure curiosity, this album is a superb example of mid-1960s large-group jazz, and deserves to be heard by all fans of the genre today. The Danish Radio Jazz Group is no humble European pick-up combo, but rather a crack ensemble that could hang with any American group of the time and who do justice here to a set of excellent original tunes by Sahib Shihab, a true jazz journeyman whose music—on the basis of this disc—deserves a deeper dive.