A Decade-Late Meeting of Ammons and Marmarosa
Recorded in 1962, shelved for a decade, Jug & Dodo finally let Dodo Marmarosa's piano share the spotlight with Gene Ammons.
Dodo Marmarosa is the reason this record stands apart from the many sessions Gene Ammons made for Prestige. A pianist who had once been one of the brightest bebop voices of the 1940s, Marmarosa had spent years away from the spotlight by the time he sat down for these sessions. His playing here is quick, lean and rhythmically alert, and it gives Ammons a conversational partner rather than a backdrop. The two trade ideas with an ease that a more routine rhythm section would not have allowed.
The band is a straightforward quartet: Sam Jones on bass, Marshall Thompson on drums, Ammons on tenor, and Marmarosa at the piano. Nothing about the instrumentation is unusual for the period, and the results are unfussy. Ammons plays with his big, woody tone and his familiar blues-rooted phrasing, but the piano keeps pushing him into different harmonic territory than he usually found on his own dates. Jones holds everything steady underneath.
The album was recorded in 1962 but not released until 1972, which explains why it is often treated as a footnote. AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow called it a historical curiosity that still contains plenty of hard-swinging performances and is worth picking up. That fits. This is not an essential starting point for Ammons, whose better-known records are the place to begin, but for listeners interested in Marmarosa or in Ammons at his most loose and conversational, it is a rewarding detour that rewards repeated listening.
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