Billboard : 07/21/1956
Score of 74

Brew Moore, young tenor man active on the San Francisco scene, says of his current work, “My main idea is to get back to simplicity. The biggest kick to me in playing is swinging – freedom and movement.” This is apparent in this album, cut earlier this year, using personnel that has been associated with Moore most of ’55 and ’56 in San Francisco. Moore’s approach is quiet and unpretentious, very listenable in blues and ballads (examples: Them Old Blues and Fools Rush In). On up-tempo material, his reticence and unaggressiveness are liabilities. Here is a relaxed and honest musician, however, that merits careful watching. Moderate sales to modern collectors.

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Cashbox : 08/11/1956

The numbers on this disk were taken from various appearances by Moore‘s Quintet during the early part of this year and the middle of last. Led by Moore’s swinging tenor sax, the group paves some smooth jazz offerings. The sessions also draw expressive work from pianist John Marabuto. The latter composed two of the set’s numbers, Them Old Blues and Five Planets In Leo. Laudable jazz entry.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 08/26/1956

We’re going to have to wait around a long time before we get another tenor saxophonist to equal Lester Young, but Fantasy Records (the fun loving Frisco outfit) has issued an LP that offers a varying portrait of that horn. And by varying, I mean shades and shadows and tones, not up and down quality.

This one is called The Brew Moore Quartet and Quintet. And Mr. Moore is a good man. He’s here with John Marabuto, piano; Max Hartstein, bass, and Gus Gustofson on drums. Trumpeter Dick Mills sits in on three of the album’s nine tracks to supply the quintet music.

All nice guys, but this is Brew Moore‘s moment. He is the outstanding figure of these 40 minutes of music. And he makes the big jump from fine to exceptional with his handling of an old standby, Tea for Two. It certainly serves to prove it takes only real talent to breathe new life into such an old and weary friend.

And I don’t think you’ll miss this album if you thumb through the new stuff at the record stores. The cover art work is a dilly. And it won’t surprise me if the horror comic watchdogs try to have this thing banned.

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Oakland Tribune
Russ Wilson : 10/14/1956

Brew Moore Quartet/Quintet involves, besides the leader, pianist John Marabuto, drummer Gus Gustofson, bassist Max Hartstein, and, on four of the nine tracks, trumpeter Dick Mills. Marabuto is from Berkeley, all the rest from San Francisco. Brew displays his thoughts wrapped in the warmth and swing which are part of a Prez-inspired tenor, while Hartstein demonstrates why some Bay musicians rate him the top bassist in the area. Gustofson, the ex-Hermanite, shows he can fit in a small group as well as a Herd and Marabuto keeps pace with his mates. Milles, in his record debut, shows promise. The programming is excellent.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 09/15/1956

A relaxed, if not particularly noteworthy, showcase for the tenor saxophone of Brew Moore, who grew up in the lee of Lester Young in the last decade with Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Herbie Steward. Moore leans closest, perhaps, to Getz and Sims, but has less of the sinuousness of the former and fewer ideas than the latter. There are piano, bass, and drums, and, on four sides, the Davis-like trumpet of Dick Mills. Five standards and four originals.

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Down Beat : 08/08/1956
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

Tenor Brew Moore is heard with bassist Max Hartstein; pianist John Marabuto; drummer Gus Gustofson (now with Woody Herman), and on three tracks, trumpeter Dick Mills, making his recording debut. Here’s also briefly in the background on Girl. Brew swings authoritatively with a muscular fullness of tone, Pres-touched phrasing and strong, cohesive conception. It is good to have him on record again with ample solo space (dig him, for example, on the swift Eyes, the blues, the lovely Fools, and the singing Little Girl).

Marabuto plays competent but not yet distinctive piano. Hatrstein is steady, and Gustofson is fine. Mills needs growing in tone and conception though he knows what’s happening. The original lines – three by Marabuto and one by Mills – are pleasant. (programming on the envelope has Planets in the wrong place.) The set is recommended for breaks, warmth, taste, and guts.

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Liner Notes by Ralph J. Gleason

“My main idea is to get back to simplicity,” says Brew Moore of his work these days. “I like a small group – such as the quintet we have on this album – where there is no other front line and I can let myself go. The biggest kick to me in playing is swinging – freedom and movement. And with a small group, I can do this more easily.”

“Music must be a personal expression of one’s own world and way of life. When everything else gets to be a drag there is music for forgetfulness and also for memory and for a reminder that there is more good than bad in most things. The idea of playing for me is to compose a different, not always better I’m afraid, melody on the tune and basis of the original song, rather than construct a series of chord progressions around the original chords. I feel that in several spots in this group of tunes we attain the rapport necessary for good jazz. I hope so.”

And when you listen to these numbers, you will agree that Brew (born Milton A. Moore Jr. in Indianola, Miss., in 1924) has done what he set out to do. These all swing and even Brew, who is most critical of his own work (“I guess I never have been happy with anything I did”) had to say of this album, “It swings. You can say that.”

Brew, who has been in San Francisco since 1954 and intends to make his home there (“Have no tux. Will not travel!”) has been one of the most important tenors on the jazz scene for almost ten years now. He achieved considerable stature in New York when he played there with Elliot Lawrence, Machito, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Howard McGhee, and today young tenor men like Bill Perkins speak of him with awe. When they come to San Francisco the first thing they want to do is see and hear him.

For this album, Brew assembled the kind of group he is most at home with. It was by and large the same group with which he worked off and on during most of 1955 and ’56 in San Francisco.

The pianist, Johnny Marabuto, is a native of the Bay Area, born in 1925 in the old race track town of Emeryville next door to Oakland in the East Bay. He has played with Nick Esposito and with Cal Tjader (and has also recorded with Tjader) and is a piano tuner by trade, devoting his evenings and weekends to jazz.

Max Hartstein, the bassist, is a former student at Indiana University (a member of that young Indiana jazz group which produced Jerry Coker) and is a newcomer to the Bay Area. He has worked with Brew’s group and with Conti Candoli and Virgil Gonsalves.

Gus Gustofson, the drummer, is an ex-Marine and a former San Francisco State College music student. He left San Francisco early in 1956 to join Woody Herman and the Third Herd and before that had worked with George Auld, Vernon Alley and Gerald Wilson‘s Big Band. He has recorded previously for Fantasy with Nat Pierce (Fantasy 3-224).

The trumpeter, Dickie Mills, is making his recorded debut on this album. He left San Francisco in April of 1956 to go to Paris and is another alumnus of San Francisco State. He has played with the San Francisco Symphony, declares Charlie Parker is his favorite musician and thinks Brew is the “most relaxed and honest musician I have ever worked with.”

This is an informal album, relaxed and easy as Brew wanted it. The tunes are the sort of things he plays at night in the various clubs where he works – ballads, the blues, original tunes. On all of the, one aspect or another of Brew’s musical character gets a chance to show itself.

One of the numbers, Fools Rush In, was a cut at a concert at the University of California in August 1955. I am particularly fond of the way he plays a beautiful tune like this, his tone and his concept are as big and as warm as anyone could want.

Brew has two absolutely golden gifts. He swings like mad and he has soul. These are things you cannot learn by woodshedding, or in any conservatory. You have to be born with them or learn them by living. Brew had them and he also has a priceless gift for phrasing.

“Everything he plays lays just right,” one musician put it. It certainly does. Just listen to him on Them There Eyes or Them Old Blues. When Brew says it, he says it simply, but it rings true. That’s the best way there is.