Very interesting comments on Scot. I.. trying to turn over a new leaf (haha) bit my tongue a couple times over the last 2 months about Scott. I find him a bit lackluster in that for many of the reasons MAE points out... but also a few others based on crispness and attack, but perhaps it is preference. I know it's another song and another tempo, but the piano player that accompanied Irvin and Haley on the original impromtu GBTC always pleases me again when I listen to that again.
I think edit ONE of the drummers Chip Thomas - drums
http://www.twitter.com/chipfunky ... the one that played on Haley's Habits a well as some portion of the others, is stellar though... very very very good (I guess that is what stellar means?).
I don't imagine its a thing people notice and might even think he's playing in a simple or easy manner but the way he keeps time in a way that emphasizes swings to a melody.. and well, I might not have the right vocabulary so ill stop.
The bass player is somewhere between the two, works well enough with the drummer and doesn't make noticeable mistakes as much as lacks a hair of what I know a bass can do.
I think there was one good example of what a combo can do where Haley was singing at that star studded hotel place in Hollywood.
I won't go through each of them and again I'm comparing them to the best. Casey's clarinet player can have wonderful moments but not always shine to the same extent where something more lyrical might be called for (or perhaps we've nver hear him try it ?) I' saying the PMJ musicians beyond the drummer not good enough to be playing for money which is already a high threshold they've met... just that I've been spoiled by better. (and I'm so picky I don't think the NOJO band is very special at all compared to a glen miller or Benny Goodman or so many groups we have recordings of from MGM movies and Variety Show bands of the 1950's.s