Billboard : 05/12/1958
Three stars

Jimmy Cleveland, one of the most exciting trombonists around today, gets a chance to show off his driving style on this new Emarcy release. Cleveland is backed here by Art Farmer, Benny Golson, Wynton Kelly, Charles Persip, Eddie Jones and Jay McAllister and Don Butterfield on tuba. Tunes include originals and standards, with the Cleveland bone sparkling on Out of This World. Ernie Wilkins and Benny Golson handled the arrangements. Good wax here.

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American Record Guide
Martin Williams : September 1958

The five scores for septet here suggest that the “cool” style has temporarily found its way back east after years on the west coast and got hardened up a bit in the process. On the whole, “capable” might best describe what happens both in score and solo, but there are two exceptions: pianist Wynton Kelly, who provides purpose and direction in some places where they seem badly needed, and trumpeter Art Farmer, who, it becomes increasingly obvious, is a soloist of outstanding consistency, originality, and balance of form-the kind of musician whose work makes improvisation in jazz not only meaningful but, one might say, even re-establishes it as essential.

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Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, IN)
Polly Cochran : 06/01/1958

Jazz Trombonist Jimmy Cleveland has gathered six instruments, most notable of which is the tuba, about him for a spirited session which EmArcy labels Cleveland Style.

The LP makes especial use of the big-belled, huffy tuba for interesting definition in the jazz gender. It’s best heard on Jimmie’s Tune, composed by Cleveland to catch the antics of his four-year-old son.

Recording on the date with Jimmy are Art Farmer, trumpet; Benny Golson, tenor; Wynton Kelly, piano; Charles Persip, drums; Eddie Jones, bass, and Jay McAllister and Don Butterfield, tuba alternates.

A galloping, fun arrangement of the ballad Out of This World, starts the men off on a well-coordinated two sides, finishing with some baseball sentiment put in jazz terms, Goodbye Ebbets Field. Ernie Wilkins is responsible for the interesting and often complex arrangements.

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Miami Herald (Miami, FL)
Fred Sherman : 07/06/1958

Cleveland headlines the hearty trombone of Jimmy Cleveland (EmArcy MG-36126) but it is the writing skill of Ernie Wilkins that captures the listener. A half dozen tracks arranged for trombone, trumpet, Art Farmer; tenor sax, Benny Golson; tuba, Jay McAllister and Don Butterfield. The rhythm is from Wynton Kelly, Charlie Persip and Eddie Jones. The tuba has a difficult time with jazz, but Wilkins manages a semblance of belonging with his arrangements on Jimmie’s Tune and Goodbye Ebbets Field. Persip’s touch is superb on the Dodger eulogy, a meaty statement for horns and reed.

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Miami News (Miami, FL)
William G. Moeser : 08/10/1958
2 stars

Jazz, Cleveland Style, is blown by trombonist Jimmy Cleveland in a recent EmArcy release, (MG-36126).

The articulate and swinging Cleveland sets the pace for the session. Basie arranger Ernie Wilkins charts the tunes and the LP shows off Jimmy and also trumpeter Art Farmer.

Jimmy’s light but yet not thin sound is portrayed in his lyric lines blown in, A Jazz Ballad, composed by Wilkins. The unusual voicing of tuba, trumpet, tenor and trombone produces some fine sounds but the ballad tracks have a tendency to drag.

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Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA)
Russ Wilson : 05/11/1958

Thoughtful arrangements by Ernie Wilkins provide a firm structure that is embellished by ace modern trombonist Jimmy Cleveland’s septet. There are some superb solos by the leader and tenorist Benny Golson; a tuba that does more than oom-pah, and a cooking rhythm section.

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Down Beat : 07/24/1958
Don Gold : 4 stars

With this personnel roster, it would have been difficult to botch up this session. Each member of the group is an assertive individualist, yet the results are cohesive and impressive.

Cleveland, as most perceptive jazz fans know, is an exceptionally able trombonist, in technical and conceptual terms. Farmer is another of that small group of creative soloists in contemporary jazz. Golson’s virtues are numerous; as a composer, he has impressed many critics and record buyers. As an instrumentalist, he is emerging as a soothing tenor voice in the present-day sea of gnarled ideas.

The rhythm section is intelligently functional throughout. Kelly, I have felt for some time, is an excellent, tasteful pianist. Jones and Persip work with Kelly in laying a sturdy foundation for the horn men to ramble on.

The tuba is employed effectively in the charts, most of which were contributed by Ernie Wilkins. Golson scored Heaven and Cleveland composed Tune, but Wilkins’ deft hand is evident on most of the tracks. His Posterity (created as a 32-8-16 bar structure) is an extremely attractive melodic chart. His Ebbets Field is an equally pointed study of the Dodgers last days, with Butterfield stalking moodily a la Duke Snider around a blues atmosphere.

This is not a flawless LP — Ballad is a monotonous theme and there are a few solos that don’t quite make sense — but it is a delightful one. Each of the participants has a good deal to say. Persons who buy this will be rewarded.

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Liner Notes by Nat Hentoff

Jimmy Cleveland is the most technically assured swiftly swinging modern jazz trombonist to have emerged since J.J. Johnson. “You can accurately call him a virtuoso,” notes tenor Benny Golson, “and he’s also unusually fluent and expressive in terms of emotional communication.” “He has,” adds arranger Ernie Wilkins, “all that dexterity, but when he plays fast, it’s not just a matter of playing a lot of notes. The notes in his fast passages make sense; they’re not exercises. His sound also differentiates him. It’s a light sound but not a thin one, and it’s one of the most pleasant trombone sounds in jazz.”

Jimmy’s biographical background has been detailed on his previous album as a leader, Introducing Jimmy Cleveland (EmArcy 36066). To recapitulate briefly, he was born in Wartrace, Tennessee, May 3, 1926. He began trombone at 16, entered the army at 18, and upon his discharge, enrolled in 1946 at Tennessee State University. From 1949 to 1953, Cleveland worked with Lionel Hampton, and since then, he’s been a ubiquitous free-lancer in New York. He’s made nearly all species of recording; played various jazz gigs, including engagements with the Johnny Richards orchestra; and he’s currently contemplating a combo of his own with trombone, tuba and rhythm.

Ernie Wilkins, formerly chief arranger for Count Basie, did all the arranging for this session except for All This and Heaven Too, which was scored by Benny Golson. The idea of including the tuba was Cleveland’s because he was intrigued at the possibilities of the blend of tuba, trumpet, tenor and trombone and “the impact” of that sound. “The tuba,” says Jimmy, “has a wider range than people realize-if you can get the right tuba player.” As for the arrangements in general, Cleveland told Wilkins to make them challenging enough to sustain the interest of the musicians but to keep them swinging as well. “You do so many dates,” said Cleveland, “in which you are not asked to play all you can offer, so on these, I wanted to give myself and the other men something really stimulating.”

Ernie’s arrangement of Out of This World is in 6/8 time up to the bridge, and then returns to 6/8 after the bridge until the solos by Art Farmer, Jimmy Cleveland and Benny Golson which are in 4/4 time. Then it’s back to 6/8 and out. Note Golson’s part which is quite difficult but, explains Golson, “is much more than an exercise when you really begin to play it and find out how logically it moves.” “You know, Benny played it all down the first time without a mistake,” emphasizes Wilkins in admiration. All This and Heaven Too is the Golson arrangement. Golson, incidentally, indicates on this album-as on a number of recent recordings-how personal and consistently inventive a soloist he is. He is, moreover, strong enough in his tastes to not be caught in any of the currently fashionable ways of playing tenor. Though certainly modern, there is a direct line in his playing to the full-toned, vigorously romantic tenors of previous years like Lucky Thompson and Coleman Hawkins.

“I thought of the tune first,” says Ernie Wilkins in describing the genesis of Posterity. “Then I felt it had a kind of haunting (to me) melody which made me think about posterity. It’s not a regular 32-bar theme. The first part up to the bridge is itself 32 bars. Then there are eight in the bridge, and 16 after. I didn’t plan it to be irregular in structure; it just came out that way.” Long Ago and Far Away is a flowing framework for solos heated by the strongly-knit rhythm section. Bassist Eddie Jones of the Basie band had, by the way, been a bandmate of Benny Golson at Howard University. At the time of these recordings-December 12 and 13, 1957—Wynton Kelly and Charlie Persip were part of the then-existing Dizzy Gillespie big band.

A Jazz Ballad was thus functionally titled by its composer, Ernie Wilkins. “I felt very good the day I wrote it. I felt inspired for some reason. So the writing was almost like improvising. I put down whatever came to my mind.” Jimmie’s Tune is by Jimmy Cleveland and is for his son, Jimmie, 4. “I wanted,” said the father, “to kind of portray his feelings as he walks around the house singing scales and sometimes picking up little licks.” Note the flexibility of tubaist McAllister in his interplay with the fleet Cleveland. Both McAllister and Butterfield were impressed at the skill with which Wilkins wrote for the tuba on this date. “He considered us,” said Butterfield, “as one of the horns with very little, if any, of the traditional strictly rhythmic functions to which we’re usually assigned. We’ve been fighting for a long time to get composers to write that way for us.”

Goodbye Ebbets Field, beginning with a mournful unaccompanied tuba solo by Butterfield, is Ernie’s favorite track in the album. “I started thinking,” he says, “that Ebbets Field is probably the lonesomest place in the world now. It’s dark and empty- a feeling I tried to convey by having the tuba start alone and having the horns come in one by one. It’s like a person walking out on the field and looking around at the empty stadium. Then, later in the blues part of the piece, it’s a kind of happy feeling because it’s reminiscent of the days when the Dodgers were there and the stands were populated. But the ending is back to reality.”

The date as a whole illustrates a Benny Golson description of Cleveland: “Jimmy is one of those with his own style and he’s never afraid to venture out. He doesn’t stick to a straight line all the time.” Accordingly, Jimmy wanted more than just a set of skeletons for blowing in this album. In Wilkins he found the rare writer who could provide a challenging context for the players and yet have his written lines so idiomatically in the jazz idiom that the solos flowed naturally out of them and back into the work as a whole. Jimmy feels this is his best album to this point, and the evidence here would indicate he is not yielding to hyperbole.