An elusive New Jazz gem recorded in 1957 and released in 1959. This one flew under the radar for me for a very long time. In process of going back to exploring earlier hard bop stuff again I listened to this and was very pleasantly surprised by how good this album is and what a great lineup it has. We have Teddy Charles on vibes, Idrees Sulieman on trumpet, John Jenkins in alto sax, Mal Waldron on piano, Addison Farmer on double bass and Jerry Segal on drums.
I’m diggin’ the trumpet work by Sulieman and Jenkins is so good on the alto. Both are quite underrated, right? Waldron is of course a favorite. Teddy Charles though is a cat I haven’t explored at all for some reason through the years. I’ve been missing out for sure which is very apparent when listening to this great album. He is smokin’ on the vibes. Love his solos and the notes he chooses. The album contains some outstanding original compositions by Waldron, Charles, Jenkins and Sulieman. There’s also one standard, ”Everything Happens To Me”, with Sulieman as the only horn.
Some favorites are Jenkins’ ”Song of a Star”, Charles’ ”Bunni” and Waldron’s ”Reiteration”.
Cool vibes all around.
