Candoli Live by Conte Candoli

"This is a remarkable recording by a pair of highly creative contemporary musicians ... The sound is well up to the usual high standard for this label..."
Reinhard Köchl, Donaukurier

They called him Count, this strange "Old World" figure, and when Count was on duty, his band mates could be sure those crucial brass passages would bark right out and make the whole band speak.

Secondo "Conte" Candoli is a perfect technician on his instrument. He has a warm sound and a controlled and sharp intonation. He plays "Cooljazz" - and is a class of his own. As a young player, Candoli developed a bebop style influenced by Dizzy Gillespie. Miles Davis and Clifford were other early influences. Candoli said he didn't come to appreciate Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington until he was older.

Conte was a die-hard road musician, wailing night after night with Herman, Benny Goodman, Tex Beneke, and finally, Stan Kenton. Candoli also worked with Dizzy Gillespie, and was one of the many links between bebop and West Coast jazz that some critics suggest never existed.

He toured and recorded also with Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Giuffre, Red Mitchell, Charlie Ventura and many others. Together with Frank Rosolino and Warne Marsh he led the famous "Preservation Bebop Band".

He remained a dedicated jazz musician at all times. He played with almost every LA big band "supergroup" of the last 40 years. He appeared at numerous jazz labs, encouraging a strong academic jazz band movement at such unhip places as Denton, Texas and Wichita, Kansas.

His place on the haphazard battlefield of modern jazz rested on his prowess as a trumpet soloist, a narrow specialty in which he was an all time top gun. Even Freddie Hubbard and Nat Adderley feared him. His reputation can be attested to by anyone who has heard Candoli in person with Bill Berry's L.A. Big Band, the Frankie Capp-Nat Pierce Juggernaut, Supersax or the Thursday Night Band, the small group he led weekly at the old Donte's in North Hollywood.

Secondo "Conte" Candoli (July 12, 1927 – December 14, 2001) was an American jazz trumpeter based on the West Coast.
He played in the big bands of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie, and with Doc Severinsen on The Tonight Show.
He also played with Gerry Mulligan, and on Frank Sinatra's TV specials.
Candoli was inducted into The International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997.