This I Dig of You

NAME A CANONICAL JAZZ ARTIST, AND CHANCES ARE JIMMY COBB HAS SHARED A STAGE OR RECORDING STUDIO WITH THEN. Starting with his first recordings with Earl Bostic at the tender age of 21 all the way up to his new album This I Dig of You, 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 by proving that it’s still not yet history. The 90-year-old drummer, after all, is as vital and thoughtful as he ever was as he swings through standards and contemporary compositions by his bandmates alike.

The album’s classic, rich swing 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.

Ask Cobb about how it feels to have spent over seven decades as one of jazz’s pillars, and he responds in typically self-effacing fashion. “I didn’t really expect to be alive all these years later — I’m thankful that I’ve been able to be here this long,” articulating a sentiment shared by jazz fans the world over. This I Dig of You is available for purchase as a 8-panel CD-Deluxe Album complete with liner notes, interview and additional photos, as a high resolution download with digital booklet, and an all major streaming services.