Jackie Mclean - One Step Beyond

This 1963 album was an exciting, innovative fencemender that drew together the warring factions of the hard boppers versus the avant gardists. Alto saxophonist Jackie McLean's roots reached back into the Forties where he learned from Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. On this album, he wedded swing with freer musical expression, and introduced four giants to the jazz world: trombonist/composer Grachan Moncur III, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, bassist Eddie Khan, and drummer Tony Williams, who at 17 years of age was a month from joining the Miles Davis Quintet. The music remains fresh and exhilarating to this day driven by a youngster's masterful, innovative approach to the drums.

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Bobby Hutcherson - Components

This was one of Hutcherson's few truly challenging dates as leader, an amalgam of mid-60's post bop sensibilities and mind-blowing "New Thing" esoterics. It is perhaps his most consistently engaging, focusing the experiments on "Dialogue" into a vision more wholly personal--all the while retaining the sense of exploratory exhiliration that made that earlier session so great.

Hutcherson is--fittingly--a far more prominent voice here, composing half the album and taking greater liberties with his solo space. Joe Chambers, whose thoughtful accompaniment and propulsive drive provided the backdrop for numerous "salad-era" Blue Note sessions, penned the other half; his decisively "free" compositions, much like his drumming, furnish the foundations for some truly intricate, engaging group communication. The improvisation itself is more compact, the tracks shorter, the scope more synoptic--a sort of manifesto for the vibist's future and past, cut clean down the middle and made ready for consumption.

Suffice it to say, the group is killer and delivers the goods. The rhythm work is rock solid, the front line of Spaulding and Hubbard as fiery and captivating as it was or would be anywhere else. Each might go on to bigger and better things, but nowhere did these musicians better fit Bobby's world, sound so sympathetic, emphatic, enthused.

This is Hutcherson's DEFINITIVE Blue Note session, a watermark for the label... and I'll bet that few can say otherwise. - Leone Evangelista

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Grant Green - Idle Moments

Review by Steve Huey

This languid, seductive gem may well be Grant Green's greatest moment on record. Right from the opening bars of the classic title cut, Idle Moments is immediately ingratiating and accessible, featuring some of Green's most stylish straight jazz playing. Whether he's running warm (pianist Duke Pearson's "Idle Moments"), cool (the Modern Jazz Quartet's "Django"), or a bit more up-tempo (Pearson's "Nomad," his own "Jean de Fleur"), Green treats the material with the graceful elegance that was the hallmark of his best hard bop sessions, and that quality achieves its fullest expression here. He's helped by an ensemble that, as a sextet, is slightly larger and fuller-sounding than usual, and there's plenty of room for solo explorations on the four extended pieces. Pearson's touch on the piano is typically warm, while two players best known on Blue Note for their modernist dates mellow out a bit -- the cool shimmer of Bobby Hutcherson's vibes is a marvelously effective addition to the atmosphere, while Joe Henderson plays with a husky, almost Ike Quebec-like breathiness. That cushion of support helps spur Green to some of the loveliest, most intimate performances of his career -- no matter what the tempo, it's as if his guitar is whispering secrets in your ear. It's especially true on the dreamy title track, though: a gorgeous, caressing, near-15-minute excursion that drifts softly along like a warm, starry summer night. Even more than the two-disc set The Complete Quartets With Sonny Clark, Idle Moments is the essential first Green purchase, and some of the finest guitar jazz of the hard bop era.