1981 Quartetto Gianni Basso “Quartetto Gianni Basso” on Vedette.

Picked this up in the wild for a few bills in DC a month or two ago. Cheap Heat action for sure! If you ignore the release date and Yearbook Photo cover art, this baby is the best spanking hard bop you’ll buy for next to nothing all year. I didn’t know anything about the record itself, just that Basso is a killer tenor and is on a lot of stuff I like. I’d never heard of the rest of the quartet, except on guy who MIGHT have played with Rava, and another guy who MIGHT be on a Bargozzi record, but no matter, they all just lay the concrete for Basso to burn, which he does, and without remorse. There is zero frill or frosting on this one. You want uptempo post bop to skin pop without having to think another minute about it, except the degree to which it’s slightly Italian-tinged, which just lends it a little extra curiosity/hot sauce? Well, you got it here. The guy is just a Doric column of bop, carrying the weight of the architecture without complaint. Castle Wax says Oh yeah.