Veteran mainstream jazz purveyors Sandy Mosse and Cy Touff from the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago played together on several occasions. Mosse passed away in 1981 shortly after this date was recorded. He was born in Detroit and lived in Amsterdam, Holland, for a number of years. Touff pretty much stayed in Chicago until his death in 2003, and these sessions lay dormant for decades, surrounded in legal and contractual issues. The paperwork was finally resolved, and listeners can now hear the wonderfully smooth Stan Getz cum Lester Young tenor saxophone style of Mosse and the burnished bass trumpet tones of the singularly unique Touff, together and united in swing. Of the seven tracks here, five are overly long because they ostensibly are jam session tunes and vehicles for lengthy solo discourses. An excellent rhythm section consists of the then young bassist Kelly Sill, pianist John Campbell (who left for California after this session), and the unheralded but tasteful drummer Jerry Coleman, who also wrote liner notes for the CD booklet. Relatively concise, Allen's Alley (aka Wee) is one of the all-time great bop vehicles, and done proud by this quintet, while What's New? is a feature for Mosse's disdain-soaked tenor and an opaque piano solo from Campbell. The classic Lester Young tune Tickle Toe, always a favorite for swing to bop-era mavens, is lean and clean, with the frontmen fitting their sounds in unison. They switch leads during Centerpiece after a modified intro, and come back together on Alone Together, both cleverly and moderately veering off the melody line. Mosse is the dominant voice for a well-swung Secret Love aside Coleman's heavier drum accents, while the tenor man expands the line of The Man I Love with Touff chiming in on the second chorus. Decorum is crucial for this band, especially from Touff's standpoint, and though this highly recommended date took forever and a day to be issued, listeners should be thankful that it finally is. ~ Michael G. Nastos, Rovi

1		Tickle Toe
2		Keester Parade
3		The Man I Love
4		Allen's Alley
5		Alone Together
6		Secret Love
7		What's New

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