It will not take long for those listening to this new album to appreciate the prodigious inventions in Masters’ arrangements…what makes Masters’ arrangements particularly interesting is that he counts on the familiarity of a tune to the extent that he can challenge the listener to find it…

With his latest album, NIGHT TALK, the brilliant arranger and bandleader Mark Masters delves deep into the Alec Wilder catalogue, crafting a vibrant, richly hued collection to spotlight one of jazz’s most gifted and singular voices: baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan. 

After 10 albums on which he applied distinctive arranging skills to the work of others—a group that includes George Gershwin, Clifford Brown, and Steely Dan’s Becker and Fagen—it’s only fair that Mark Masters finally gives us an album of his own writing.

Steely Dan, co-piloted by composer-instrumentalists Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, has made good, jazz-informed pop music for 40 years. Jazz orchestrator Mark Masters has taken some of the group’s obscure early tunes and turned a clutch of great soloists loose on his charts: Tim Hagans, Billy Harper, Oliver Lake, Gary Foster, Gary Smulyan and Sonny Simmons.

Mark Masters is an accomplished arranger who comes up with hip, unusual ideas for jazz concerts and recordings, such as repertoire by Steely Dan and Dewey Redman. His new album contains compositions by Ellington’s saxophonists: Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Jimmy Hamilton, Ben Webster and Harry Carney. All the tunes sound like they could have been written by Ellington, which is of course a compliment. Three list Duke as co-composer.

What a dandy recipe went into this curious retrieval. Take the highromantic sentimentality of post-WWII pop singer Frankie Laine (“That’s My Desire,” “Mule Train,” “We’ll Be Together Again”), slice and dice for coolly crisp “little big band” then add liberal amounts of fiery, swinging baritone sax solos. Weird. And wonderful.

This album was supposed to be a collaboration between Dewey Redman (as composer and tenor saxophone soloist) and Mark Masters (as arranger for a 15-piece ensemble). But it became a tribute album when Redman died on September 2, 2006

Some of the best-kept secrets in Southern California jazz are the guest intesives and concerts that Mark Masters presides over at the Claremont Colleges under the aegis of American Jazz Institute.

From his first hit, “That’s My Desire” in 1947, Frankie Laine was on the pop charts consistently for two decades, often with country fare like the movie theme that gives this CD its title. So at first he seems an unlikely inspiration for a jazz project led by baritone saxophonist Smulyan with charts by the modern arranger Mark Masters. But the two have mined Laine’s catalogue for a program of 10 songs-five co-written plus two wholly written by him-adding up to a top-flight nonet album.