The title may be wishful thinking at best — the forlorn hope that big bands would reassert themselves with teenagers in rockin’ ’59 — but jazz audiences could savor a solid, mainstream sound from Sal Salvador and his part-time ensemble on this LP. Salvador’s pearly-toned, sleekly polished, boppish guitar takes the lion’s share of solo room; otherwise, the primary feature of this band was a novel but not terribly striking combination of Salvador, Ray Starling’s mellophone and Vinnie Dean’s alto sax, billed as the Sound of the Three. Larry Wilcox, the arranger on most of the tracks, tends toward safe, relatively sedate charts, although “I Concentrate On You” and “Venice Anyone” unleash the band’s latent speed and power, with Wilcox and Mike Citron engaging in a lively tenor battle on the latter. Thinking in terms of possible airplay, Decca limits the Salvador band to 12 cuts of less than three minutes each. – Richard S. Ginell
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