Album Notes

Cool jazz. Images of the early days on the West Coast when new ideas, harmonies, ensemble playing and great improvisation were all happening. Recreating and updating that experience is the mission of Octobop. Performing and promoting the music that began with The Birth of the Cool -- and the innovations of Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Dave Pell, Jimmy Guiffre, and Howard Rumsey among others -- Octobop makes cool jazz hot again.

Octobop plays the finest in West Coast Jazz. On its latest CD,
Too Close For Comfort, recorded with the help of Bud Shank, you'll hear:
Fallin' In Love With Love - Swing version of Rogers and Hart standard
Four Others - Jimmy Giuffre tune recorded by Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars
Too Close For Comfort - Features Dean Jennings on tenor sax
Relaxin - Jimmy Guinn for Al Belletto
Forty-Second Street - Shorty Rogers arrangement - dark and mysterious
Flight Of The Foo Birds / Would He - Fun romp arranged by Bob Eberhart
Godchild - From the "Birth of the Cool" album that started it all
Cheek to Cheek - Danceable - of, course
Out of Somewhere - Smooth ballad from Jimmy Giuffre and the Lighthouse All Stars
Coop De Graas - From Shorty Rogers - Cool and Crazy
Bernie's Tune - Extends the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet version into a rousing closer for the album - features everyone.

Arrangers for the CD include Shorty Rogers, Wes Hensel, Bob Eberhart, and Geoff Roach