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The folks at Vinyl Me Please<\/a> have struck gold once again. The mail-order subscription label has carved a unique niche in the music marketplace with its carefully-chosen and -curated monthly LP releases, and its latest offering \u2013 The Ben Webster Quintet<\/strong>‘s 1957 Soulville<\/em> \u2013 continues the label’s trend of exquisite reissues.<\/p>\n Tenor saxophonist Webster had played with Duke Ellington<\/strong><\/a> for many years, but by the time of this album \u2013 the fourth under his own name \u2013 Webster had made a name for himself as a soloist and bandleader in his own right. With a who’s-who band that featured Oscar Peterson<\/strong><\/a> on piano, bassist Ray Brown<\/strong>, Stan Levey<\/strong> on drums, and guitarist Herb Ellis<\/strong>, Soulville<\/em> is peak Webster. The songs vary from understated, bluesy workouts to more uptempo cuts, and throughout, everyone takes his turn at soloing.<\/p>\n The aptly-named title track is cool and understated, built around a blues framework. \u201cLate Night\u201d is a blues as well, but a much more sexy, uptempo one that swings. The romantic \u201cTime on My Hands\u201d features some exquisitely expressive sax work from Webster. \u201cWhere Are You\u201d is skillful, subdued, late-night minimalistic jazz. The familiar \u201cMakin’ Whoopee\u201d is given a suitably playful reading by Webster, with solid support from is band mates.<\/p>\n A 2003 reissue of Soulville<\/em> (on another label) appended the set with three bonus tracks that featured Webster on (sprightly if loose-limbed) piano; one of those cuts (\u201cBoogie Woogie\u201d) is included on the Vinyl Me Please reissue; other than that, it’s a straight reissue of the original Verve LP. It’s noteworthy (and odd) that the new LP doesn’t have a paper label; instead, the Verve logo and other info that would have been printed is instead tooled directly into the black vinyl.<\/p>\n The heavy-gauge LP comes in a deluxe paper sleeve, and \u2013 as with all Vinyl Me Please reissues \u2013 includes a poster featuring new artwork, and an overleaf sleeve that features brief notes from VMP’s Tyler Barstow<\/strong>. And as ever, the overleaf includes a recipe for a cocktail that Barstow believes well-matched to the music; in this case it’s a very old-school Gin and Tonic. I can vouch for its successful pairing with Ben Webster’s Soulville<\/em>.<\/p>\n
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