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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Audio Magazine
Charles A. Robertson : March, 1957

The meeting of two musicians of the same instrument can be a contest and display of prowess, or it can be an exchange of ideas and respect. In either case they are often more inspired by the feeling of cooperation or rivalry. In a series of Friday sessions at Rudy Van Gelder’s, Prestige has applied this principle to assorted alto, tenor, and trumpet men. Spontaneity is sought, sometimes at the expense of an even performance and the best sound. Their appeal is to those wanting uncrystallized modern thinking, especially in respect to a particular instrument.

In the sixth pairing, Art Farmer and Donald Byrd cross trumpets for heated bouts in Dig by Miles Davis, Kenny Drew’s Contour, and an original blues by Byrd. A more relaxed spirit is found as Farmer solos on When Your Lover Has Gone, and Byrd balances it with ‘Round Midnight. Jackie McLean also works in well as a contrast and foil for the swift horns.

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Metronome
Jack Maher : April, 1957

Trumpeters in tandem—in this case Art Farmer and Donald Byrd, and separated solo-wise by Jackie McLean. The back-line is composed of Barry Harris, Art Taylor and Doug Watkins, piano, drums and bass. Art and Donald come out of the same school stylistically, that of Miles Davis, but there are positive distinctions and this album is of great assistance in pointing them up. Through the first two tracks, Art is the much cooler, relaxed horn man. He achieves an intimacy that borders on the conversational. Don pierces more, has less of a fullness of sound and harmonic idea. But on Dig, a Miles Davis redecoration of Sweet Georgia Brown, there is a brawling excitement—a wild up-tempo charging that makes it difficult to separate the two. It is undoubtedly the best side, especially in the two bar trades toward the end. Gone and Midnight are individual ballads by Art and Don respectively; the verdict here goes to Art for greater warmth and originality.

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Saturday Review
Wilder Hobson : 01/26/1957

This, it is said, is an age of anxiety, and it is easy for most of us to believe it. One would expect to find the fact reflected in modern jazz, and it seems to me that this is very much the case. There is a prevailing sense of tension which was not provided by the jazz of thirty or even twenty years ago. Nowadays it is quite surprising to play the old records and discover how, even at the faster and ostensibly more excited tempi, the feeling is conveyed of ease, of relaxation in abandon. A great deal of jazz which, when we first heard it, seemed nervous and perhaps hectic to our ears, with familiarity has come to strike us as full of joie de vivre. I will cite, for instance, the earlier stomps of such bands as Jelly Roll Morton’s, Charlie Johnson’s and Fletcher Henderson’s. As Hugues Panassié put it long ago, even when the finest colored musicians are playing rapid tempi, they play legato.

That is not so often the impression today. The modern tension seems to me to take two general directions. On the one hand there is an anxiousness to crowd as much original figuration into a chorus as possible: hear, for instance, the faster numbers in Two Trumpets: Art Farmer and Donald Byrd (Prestige LP 7062). Here I feel surfeited with modern noodling. On the other hand, there is a 6 riffle perfecting of elaborate technique, which may be striking in itself but often seems rather fussy and bloodless: hear The Return of Art Pepper, in which the alto saxophonist is joined by some of the very best West Coast stars: Jack Sheldon, trumpet; Russ Freeman, piano; Leroy Vinnegar, bass; and Shelly Manne, drums (Jazz West JWLP-10). Both of the combinations in question, I might add, seem able to take things a good deal easier in their slow ballad numbers.

In any event, the reader may reproach me with the reminder that this is an age of anxiety. Why not appreciate good music made in tension—and the Two Trumpets and Art Pepper are full of good music—realizing that the tension is inevitable, an expression of the times?

I will answer that while I expect tension, I do not think it is inevitable. With apologies for hurling these large subjects around in this small space, I would also say that I do not think music must be an expression of the times or, for that matter, of the temporal condition of the musician. On the contrary, it seems to me that the finest music, from the folk singer’s spontaneous song to the Requiem of Berlioz, has always represented not an expression of temporal conditions, but in a sense a working off of those concerns, achieves a catharsis in tone which can be wholly beautiful in the midst of outward ugliness, or entirely calm in the midst of outward frenzy. Bessie Smith is not blue while she is singing the blues. Mozart is not poor while he is immersed in the E Flat Symphony. For the musician, the music is the thing-dedicated as it may be to an innamorata or a God. It will run an expressive gamut From grave to gay (variously interpreted, of course-one man’s carol is another man’s dirge). But in so doing it will speak out of the musician’s depths not his surroundings, and a Brazilian composer of today may be deeply moved by a bamboo flute song handed down from the Japan of the 18th century.

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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.