Billboard : 01/26/1957
Score of 78

The trumpets of Farmer and Byrd are framed in a familiar setting: Jackie McLean on alto, Barry Harris on piano, Art Taylor on drums and Doug Watkins on bass. Farmer and Byrd stimulate each other and a lively flow of ideas volleys back and forth between them, particularly on Dig, the Miles Davis opus, and on The Third, a minor blues. They also have well-wrought solos on ballads: Farmer on When Your Lover Has Gone and Byrd on ‘Round About Midnight. The styling is airy, economical and quite relaxed for such ordinarily tense musicians. It’s a very enjoyable LP for the modern jazz customer.

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Down Beat : 02/06/1957
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

This is a pairing session that was well conceived and programmed. On three tracks, both trumpets are present to challenge and be stimulated by each other with McLean as a third horn and a contrast in timber. To provide further balance, each trumpet has a solo vehicle. Byrd (Midnight) and Farmer (When Your Love Has Gone) are heard in searching moving ballad interpretations.

On the others, both blow with swift imagination and heat. There are passages of quick exchanges, particularly the long exciting bout at the end of Dig, that recall in spirit if not idiom a 1939 Ellington record, Tootin’ Through the Roof, with Cootie Williams and Rex Stewart.

Both Farmer and Byrd have a long and fertile jazz life ahead. Thus far, it seems to me that Farmer is the more settled of the two, particularly on up-tempos. He is, I think, closer to having found his inner style than Byrd, although Byrd is getting there. McLean is searing and a welcome presence. Harris plays with consistent taste and ease. Art Taylor and Doug Watkins are strongly underneath. Good notes by Ira Gitler that identify all solos.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

The presence of two musicians of the some instrument a session will usually produce some interesting results. Each is naturally going to try and outdo the other and while it may not be the cutthroat competition of the Thirties (an overtly healthy competition at that), the underlying sense of rivalry combined with the feeling of respect for and enjoyment of the other’s playing very often helps to inspire each.

In recent months. Prestige has tried to stimulate the Friday afternoon recording sessions by bringing together musicians of the same horn. Examples of this can be heard in LPs such as Informal Jazz with tenors Hank Mobley and John Coltrane (7043); Pairing Off featuring the altos Phil Woods and Gene Quill, the trumpets of Kenny Dorham and Donald Byrd (7046); Tenor Madness wherein Coltrane guests on the title number with Sonny Rollins (7047); the horns of Coltrane and Mobley meet with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims in Tenor Conclave (7074); the Gene Ammons All Stars where Art Farmer and Donald Byrd cross trumpets.

In Two Trumpets (an un chi-chi title if I ever heard one), Art and Donald once again join horns with Jackie McLean as middleman and foil soundwise. Two of the numbers have conversational exchanges between the trumpets and each Bb hornman also has a number entirely to himself.

Dig, first recorded by Miles Davis for Prestige in 1951 (now on LP 7012), is revived here. Jackie was also on the original version in what was his first recording session, Here, Barry Harris opens the soloing followed by Jackie. Then Doug Watkins takes over for two choruses of walking time leading into two choruses of well-structured Art Taylor improvisations. This sets the stage for the trumpets. First Farmer plays three choruses, then Byrd three, then two apiece in the same order. After they split chorus, McLean comes back in for two before Art and Donald embark on five choruses of quick exchanges.

Conversations are also in evidence on The Third, a minor written by Donald Byrd which utilizes the three horns well in statement of the theme and interlude. The solo order here Byrd, McLean, Farmer, Harris and Watkins (bowed). Then follows six choruses of four bars apiece between the trumpets with Farmer first again.

Kenny Drew‘s Contour, also heard in McLean’s 4, 5 and 6 (LP 7048), is well delineated by Farmer, McLean, Byrd and Harris in that order. The one chorus before the restatement of the theme has everyone trading “fours” with Taylor. Byrd is first and last with McLean and Farmer in between.

For his solo number Art Farmer delivers When Your Lover Has Gone with that warm nostalgia that he can impart so well. Here is another rebuttal to the critics who complain about the modernists not having a way with a ballad.

Thelonious Monk‘s ‘Round Midnight (or ‘Round About Midnight – what you will), a song that has been recorded more and more recently and yet has not lost its singular freshness, is Donald Byrd’s vehicle here. He does well by it as it does by him.