JAZZ REVIEW : Edison’s Horn: How Sweets It Is

Call it singularity, personality, individuality; whatever the word, Harry (Sweets) Edison, who played Tuesday and Wednesday at the Biltmore Hotel’s Grand Avenue Bar in downtown Los Angeles, has it. The sound of his horn is so special that given four bars heard by chance on a radio station, you could make a killing with a bet on his identity.

If you ask him in what year his trumpet first brightened the brass team of the Count Basie Orchestra, Edison will cover his mouth while answering. (It was 1937.) Ever since then, his style has been one of the most personal, most swinging, most humorous in jazz history.

Open or muted, weaving long, sinuous lines or bending notes up and down with eel-like slipperiness, Edison puts his imprimatur on each tune. It may be an old pop song like “I Wish I Knew” (to which he applied one of his famous long, slow fades) or “Green Dolphin Street” complete with half-hidden quotations from other songs, or his perennial blues theme “Centerpiece;” the longer he serves it up, the sweeter the taste.

At the Biltmore he was in fitting company. Herman Riley’s blustering tenor sax kept pace with the leader in bold adventures and sly asides.

Art Hillery at the piano, was, as always, the reliable latter day mainstream. Andy Simpkins on bass was a model of sectional and solo virtuosity, and Roy McCurdy’s drums kept the pot boiling consistently.

During the 8 p.m. set Tuesday, aired on KKGO, Edison went through his by now mandatory litany of self-praise, introducing himself with about 25 laudatory adjectives. But don’t be persuaded that he is kidding with his music. When Edison takes off on one of his fanciful flights, he means business; and he has been in business for more years than he cares to admit.