Weird Valley

Disc 1:
Four Moons
The Gears
Mars
Sunset Concerto
Cyclotron
October
Under Capricorn
Venus
Lover Man
Spellbound
Transition
A Lion Lives Here
Timepiece
Gingersnap
The Nearness Of You
Lullaby Of Birdland
Ballade For Guitar
Metropolitan
Newport News

Disc 2:
Summertime
Quadrille For Moderns
Five Impressions Of Color: A. Spectrum Violet/B. Sea Green/C. Royal Blue/D. Ebony/E. Spectrum Red
Life Begins At Midnight
Night Train To Wildwood
Threadneedle Street
Weird Valley
The Set Break
Moonlight In Vermont
Long Ago And Far Away
The Arab Barber Blues
Nice Questions

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Blue Note raids the back of its vaults for all four of Melle's long out of print 10" LPs, plus the 12" Patterns in Jazz, in order to place back in circulation a musician who had been nearly invisible to the jazz world for a good three decades. Though Melle's entertaining self-penned liner notes may be outrageously self-aggrandizing, this collection leaves little doubt that he was (and remains) a marvelous saxophonist and an intriguing composer who hasn't been given his due. On the early sides, Melle plays an erudite, relaxed, always musical tenor sax, and "Transition" marks his recorded debut on baritone, which he uses in a thoughtful, even quizzical manner for the remainder of the set. As a composer, Melle was very much the uncompromising cool bopper, but was also equipped with a fascinating mind of his own. His first session is also the most startling: "Four Moons" is brilliant in its Kentonian harmonic way, with vibraphone striking the chords; so is his most famous jazz composition "The Gears," with its Monica Dell scat vocal lead doubled by vibraphone. Further on in the set, Melle does away with the piano in the cool tradition, but gives the lineup an unorthodox twist by using a guitarist (Tal Farlow, Lou Mecca, or Joe Cinderella) in the keyboard role, and a trombonist (Eddie Bert or the swinging, vastly underrated Urbie Green) or even a tuba (Don Butterfield) on the front line. He also employs consistently first-class rhythm sections, with Max Roach and a young Joe Morello among the drummers. For those super-collectors who may have the extremely rare originals (now worth hundreds of dollars each), there is one unreleased track, "The Nearness of You"; the digitally remastered sound, flaws in the master tapes aside, is excellent.

~Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
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