An Irreverent Fanzine.
Est. 1984

Vido’s Bop

You don't hear much about tenor player Vido Musso. He emerged from the big band era of the 1930s, and by the time he was a main soloist for Stan Kenton it was the mid 1940s and Musso, along with Kai Winding, Pete Rugolo, and others in Kenton's band he began to be attracted to be-bop. Musso flirted with it in early 1946 for Savoy, and with a few of the same cats, cut this boppish track in 1947. It really is more the tune and the arrangement here that is boppish, as for the most part, the fine solos are still mostly in the swing thing. It shows how many aspects of what Gillespie and Parker introduced became made and remade after their most influential recordings of 1945 and 1946. Musso has his own sound and mildly gruff approach and at his best seems reminiscent of Lockjaw Davis, Lucky Thompson and Illinois Jacquet, who were all his contemporaries.