Down Beat : 01/11/1956
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

Study in Brown is another powerfully rhythmic, emotionally driving session by this vibrant quintet whose leaders are its chief assets. Tenor Harold Land sounds and swings hard, but hasn’t much individual freshness of conception though he sound better here than on previous sets. Pianist Richie Powell is capable but as yet not a major soloist, and bassist George Morrow keeps a solid, steady beat. Max is superb for this kind of muscular unit. It’s true his drumming is usually not for introverts, but fortunately, the hornmen here are strong enough to fuse with it and ride on it.

Brownie can be very exciting and is often here, but there are still times when his choruses are partially essays in swiftness rather than cohesively well shaped, flowingly individual statements. When Brownie comes to learn the value of economy, he’ll be even more stimulating than he is now. According to the label, the first original is by Powell, the next by Brown, the third by Land, and the remaining three by Brown. Their lines are all relaxed and amiable though not likely to attain longevity. Good engineering. These were recorded in New York in February, 1955.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

The career of Clifford Brown and Max Roach has followed a steadily climbing course since these two amazing musicians were signed to an exclusively EmArcy contract barely a year ago. Of course, those who have followed their careers are aware of their previous releases on this label, such as Brown & Roach, Inc. on MG 36008 and the unique Clifford Brown with Strings on MG 36005

If you have either of those LPs, or if you have watched the progress of Clifford and Max to their present united renown, you need not be told that the release of a new set of performances by them is an event of major importance in jazz circles.

The numbers on this particular set have a special distinction: they are the first Brown-Roach combo sides recorded in New York. Although Clifford and Max are by no means representative of West Coast jazz – indeed, their easy-going, naturally swinging performances are in many respects the antithesis of what is often understood by that term – they simply happened to get together in California because Max, who was working out there with the Lighthouse group at Hermosa Beach, decided to send for Clifford and organize a group with him.

These new sides were recorded on February 23, 24 and 25, 1955.

First on the menu is the 20-year-old Ray Noble standard Cherokee. Starting out with the melody played in unison by the two horns while Max offers a simple after-beat rhythm accompaniment, the performance gets into high gear with a phenomenal solo by Clifford. Listening to the way he manipulates the chord changes on the release of this chorus, you may find it interesting to reflect that this kind of jazz improvisation would have been absolutely inconceivable to any musician, irrespective of style and technique, until a few years ago when Dizzy Gillespie broke through a sound barrier by creating a new jazz horizon and broadening the harmonic scope of jazz ad libbing. The same comments apply, to a larger degree, to the solos of Harold Land on tenor saxophone and Richie Powell on piano. When Max takes over for a demonstration of his unique agility on the snares, you are again reminded of the jazz revolution that has taken place in recent years, for it was Max who set the pace for a whole generation of drummers with a broader and more exciting concept of the role played by percussion on the new jazz scene.

Jacqui is a lighthearted original composition by pianist Richie Powell, with a theme that has the two horns running parallel, mostly in thirds, with a twelve-bar blues format for the middle part.

Swingin’ is a performance delightfully suggestive of its title. The theme is composed of a repeated rising phrase at an expressed tempo, on a chord pattern familiar to jazzmen since the days of I Never Knew.

Lands End, written by tenor saxophonist Harold Land, is one of the most relaxed and attractive items in the entire set. Based on a unison riff phrase, it is taken at a casual medium gait in a minor key, with a two-beat feel established by bassist George Morrow. After the theme has been established the quintet swings into a Harold Land solo with the more customary four-four beat. Dixieland fanatics who accuse modern jazz of continuous cacophony, as well as musicians of the older school who make similar comments about bop and other contemporary forms, might find it instructive to listen to Land’s End. Here is music that is melodic, listenable, even commercial, yet unmistakably the work of progressive minds.

The second side opens with George’s Dilemma, a Clifford Brown opus which might aptly have been titled The Morning After The Night in Tunisia. Afro-Cuban rhythmic backgrounds, and a piano almost suggestive of a Cuban cocktail lounge, contrast strangely with some of the more swinging passages in this effectively varied work, which Max Roach describes as “a romance between Afro-Cuban and jazz rhythms.”

Clifford Brown’s Sandu is a humorous, swinging medium-tempo blues. Notice that Clifford’s solo, except for one passage in which he flies off into double-time, is very simple, bluesy and earthy. Harold Land, too, though he gets busy at times, keeps close to the blues spirit. After Max has taken over for a while, George Morrow walks his bass solo right into the closing ensemble, a repetition of the original theme.

The blues is the basis for the next number, too, though Gerkin for Perkin employs a faster tempo and different mood. The title, by the way, is a gesture to Carl Perkins, a pianist on the West Coast. “This is a blues with altered changes,” comments Max, “the kind of thing I did a few years ago with Charlie Parker on Sippin’ at Bells.

The familiar old popular song If I Love Again is ingeniously converted into a jazz theme at a faster tempo through the use of syncopation and rubato. Clifford Brown, in one of his best solos, has some Miles Davis-like moments here.

Take The “A” Train, written some fourteen years ago by Billy Strayhorn and famous as the perennial theme of the Duke Ellington orchestra, gets an unusual treatment here, thanks to a suggestion by Richie Powell for an introduction and ending idea. Strange though it may seem, this is the first time we have ever heard Take The “A” Train played with train effects! After the theme has been played in unison, Harold Land boards the uptown express at 14th Street; Clifford Brown gets aboard at Times Square; Richie wails at Columbus Circle and Max takes over at 125th Street. By the time the “A” Train comes to a halt (at 207th Street, no doubt) everyone is understandably exhausted, but happy to have taken part in a wild and eventful ride.