Benny Green (saxophonist)

"Sims's four-week engagement at Ronnie Scott's Club represents something of an innovation in the comic-opera trade union practices of die jazz world. Before Sims was allowed to make club appearances here, the American and British Musicians' Unions wrangled for months, and the eventual achievement of a working arrangement is a considerable triumph for Scott. Sims, a taciturn tenor saxophonist in his middle thirties, is now at the very peak of his powers, and the one distinguishing feature about his playing in Scott's is the comparative humility of his tone. He plays roughly half as loud as his British counterparts without sacrificing anything in penetrative power, and those who take pains to catch every nuance of his style will discover a fundamentally simple approach, unadorned by any kind of frippery, and executed with superb articulation and assurance. He is no original either in the sound he produces or the harmonies he employs. The moment he starts to play, the name which springs to mind is Lester Young, for Sims produces a close variant of that catacoustlc tone with which Lester honked his way through the 1930s. What is more surprising is the fact that Sims, always considered modern, sticks to harmonies which would not be too outrageous in a dixieland ensemble. Like his ex-working partner Stan Getz, he apparently prefers those themes whose seventh chords resolve with a cheerful inevitability rather than those who fly off at chromatic tangents."