Vintage Jazz - this is a re-release of the Wail's very first recording. Kind of where it all began. The band was only togther for a year when this was recorded. Richard Davis produced and brought in Jimmy Blanton's bass - quite a treat to have the very same bass that graced all those great Elington tunes on this CD. This about Jimmy Blanton --"Despite staying with Ellington for only two years, Blanton made an incalculable contribution in changing the way the double bass was perceived in jazz. Until his emergence, the double bass was rarely used to play anything but quarter notes in ensemble or solos. By playing the bass more like a horn, Blanton began sliding into eighth- and sixteenth-note runs, introducing melodic and harmonic ideas that were totally new to the instrument. His virtuosity put him in a different class from his predecessors, making him the first true master of the jazz bass and demonstrating the instrument's unsuspected potential as a solo instrument." Personel on Vintage Jazz ; Sims Delaney-Potthoff - mandolin, mandola, vocals Chris Wagoner - violin and vocals Jon Cooper - guitar Laurie Lang - string bass and vocals