A superb septet setting with two altos and two trumpets pairing off. The personnel are a nice bunch, Phil Woods and Gene Quill on alto saxes, Kenny Dorham and Donald Byrd on trumpets, Doug Watkins on double bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. The music is wonderful, energetic hard bop. Quite unusual setting, but two altos and two trumpets makes it really interesting, and for me with my love for jazz trumpet, this is great.
Phil Woods is a cat that I haven't come to fully explore yet. He's great I think, so I'm looking forward to buying a lot more stuff with him. Come to think of it, there's a lot of musicians that I haven't had the time to dig into for real. That makes for a very exciting time ahead. There's so many great artists and records to discover and enjoy in jazz. It's hard though, concentrating on one musician and trying to go through their whole catalogue. I'm discovering as I go along and buy the stuff that appeals to me the most. One artist leads to another. One guy that I've gone through quite throughly is Chet Baker. Almost all his work I've tried to explore. Not all albums though. But some from the early years, the middle era stuff and his later work on a lot of european labels. I have far from all the great stuff though. A lot of Pacific Jazz stuff is missing, for example. I bought a lot of the later stuff, before I started to collect the high-end, collectible rarities. I'm thinking of concentrating and dedicating some bucks to buying Coltrane LP's. The Impulse! stuff really appeals.
But back to this great record displayed above. This copy is in extremely nice condition, M-/M-. The cover looks like it just came home to me untouched from a 50's record store. It's a great tip if you like straight forward hard bop music. There's no big surprises, it's just good. The album wets the appetite for looking up more Dorham and Woods stuff for me. All tunes are great, no favorite at the moment, they are all highly enjoyable. I'm listening to the album as I'm writing this, and I realize that I have to put this on more often. If you don't have it, try and get a nice original copy. You don't have to pay thousands of dollars for it.
More nice stuff coming up, hold your breath...