1980 Thom Mason “Be Do Have” on Affinity Records

Have zero clue who Mason is? Don’t feel bad, his mother probably only has a vague idea as well, which is REALLY a shame, because this is a great record. Sales figures probably weren’t helped by the goofy, ungrammatical and almost deliberately impossible to recall title, the bad fonts, the bad art, and especially excessive mentioning of the playing of flute. Personally, I love Dolphy and Ronald Snijders and Alice C and Hermeto and Lloyd McNeill and Harold McNair on the flute, and even Herbie “Chest Cashmere” Mann is pretty great if you can get past the cheese, so I don’t share the flute-fear of many in the wider jazz world, but it’s worth noting that Mason plays Alto more often than not. “Dr. Thom” was really more of a professor than a cat on the after hours club scene, and so he only has a few titles to his name, but he can definitely swing, and this is top modal jazz with unexpected twists and a really nice feel for creating a very specific sound. I’m a sucker, as I imagine many reading this sentence are as well, for private press one-offs that sound like they should have gotten a better gig over at Strata.