This I Dig of You

"[THIS I DIG OF YOU] is a swinging affair, propelled by Cobb’s atomic-clock steady time feel and pristine touch on all his drum-kit components, not least the centered, resonant ride cymbal heard on iconic Miles Davis dates like KIND OF BLUE and IN PERSON: FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE BLACKHAWK, and classic sessions with Wes Montgomery, Sarah Vaughan, Cannonball Adderley, and Dinah Washington." Ted Panken, Downbeat "At 90, Cobb still has it, as he handily demonstrates on THIS I DIG OF YOU, leading and driving a quartet on an uncluttered, frills-free program dominated by standards, some of which he’s been playing for decades. For these warmly recorded, intimate-sounding recordings, he’s joined by several musicians with whom he’s previously collaborated: pianist Harold Mabern and two former students of Cobb’s at the New School in New York, bassist John Webber and guitarist Peter Bernstein." -- Phillip Booth, JazzTimes "Most of the headlines about drummer James “Jimmy” Cobb — in the wake of his passing at 91 last week, and in the past, too — speak of his many appearances on Miles Davis and John Coltrane recordings, including KIND OF BLUE and GIANT STEPS. Cobb’s work with those two titans earned him a spot in jazz history, but he was still writing his own story last year. His final album, THIS I DIG OF YOU, released on Smoke Sessions Records in 2019, featured the bristling guitar work of Peter Bernstein, a longtime member of Cobb’s quartet and his quintet, Cobb’s Mob." -- Phil Freeman, Burning Ambulance *** Name a canonical jazz artist, and chances are Jimmy Cobb shared a stage or recording studio with them. Starting with his first recordings with Earl Bostic at the tender age of 21 all the way up to THIS I DIG OF YOU his final album as a leader. Cobb has been not just a jazz drummer but the jazz drummer — a musician unmatched in technique and experience. 60 years ago, of course, Cobb played on what wound up becoming the most indelible record in jazz history, KIND OF BLUE. This recording, with a band of Cobb’s longtime collaborators — pianist Harold Mabern, guitarist Peter Bernstein, and bassist John Webber — pays tribute to that seminal album, in a way, by proving that classic mainstream jazz is not history yet. Cobb, who was 90 years old during the recording sounds as vital and thoughtful as he ever was as he swings through standards and contemporary compositions by his bandmates alike. The album was recorded with a casualness that recalls the kind of sessions Cobb was booked for during the music’s heyday. “I let them pick the tunes,” Cobb says of his bandmates, who chose from the wide array of songs in the Cobb’s Mob repertoire while focusing on ones that they’d never recorded before. THIS I DIG OF YOU required no rehearsal, and was recorded in just one session. But the thing that makes the album so special isn’t the design of the tracklist — it’s the precision and detail the legendary drummer uses to carefully guide each song, responding to and amplifying the incredible soloists in his quartet.