Billboard : 05/06/1957
Score of 75

Package should move with dealers who cater to modern jazz clientele, for Brown‘s recent death has created demand for his recorded efforts. Set has one selection on each side, and is in a jam session groove; soloists – H. Geller, K. Drew, J. Maini, etc. – spread out, and the results are gratifying. Most importantly, trumpeter Brown is hear at length, often to good advantage.

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Cashbox : 05/11/1957

Mercury has issued 2 sessions, recorded in 1954, headed by the late Clifford Brown. Each number, Caravan and Autumn Leaves, takes up a side, and in both, Brown’s expressive trumpet weaves through the pieces with warmth and penetrating power. The relaxed and sensitive pace is taken on Autumn Leaves, while the Caravan moves with fervor and enthusiasm. These are two pressings starring the late trumpeter jazz followers won’t want to miss.

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Kansas City Call
Albert Anderson : 05/17/1957

In jazz, EmArcy Records have produced an exciting wax session featuring the late Clifford Brown and a group of all-stars. Call Clifford Brown All-Stars, the album contains one selection to each side and is loaded with many effervescent solos. Brown, one of the nation’s foremost disciples of jazz trumpet, is heard at length in the track, which is a definite moving session.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 06/23/1957

This is another in the posthumous releases of the great young trumpetman. There are only two tracks, one to a side, and each consisting of long riff based choruses. On the two dates are, in addition to Brown, Max Roach, Herb Geller, Walter Benton, Kenny Drew and Curtis Counce. A must for dyed-in-the-wool jazz fans; not required otherwise.

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Saturday Review
Martin Williams : 07/13/1957

The late Clifford Brown was a trumpet virtuoso with an almost inexhaustible capacity for making staccato variations on chord sequences. Here he was involved (in 1954) with H. Geller, J. Maini, W. Benton, K. Drew, C. Counce, and M. Roach in prolonged versions of Caravan, which is rather ragged except for Drew and Roach, and of Autumn in New York, which shows what Brown was undoubtedly working on: a combination of the song of Miles Davis and the rapid facility of Gillespie and Navarro.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

In music and the other arts, just as in the market for such commercial commodities as cigarettes or meat, the approach of a shortage of supply inevitably sets up an increase in demand. Thus it was that the tragic passing at the age of twenty-five of trumpeter Clifford Brown immediately created, among jazz fans all over the world, a cry for more of the works recorded during is all too brief career.

Fortunately the supply of Brownie’s recordings had not been exhausted, with the result that the perpetuation of his memory is yet a little more firmly assured by the release of two more sides cut with an all star personnel in Los Angels in August, 1954.

Two previous sides, Coronado and You Go To My Head, were release some time ago on MG 36039, under the title Best Coast Jazz. It was pointed out that this term was intended to have absolutely no significance beyond the fact that the sides were recorded within a stone’s throw of the Pacific Ocean and contained some of the best improvised solos recorded in that general area in recent years.

Clifford Brown and Max Roach, both at that time in the middle of a lengthy California sojourn, may be said to have been in West Coast jazz but not of it. The rather formalized structures of the type of music usually associated with that term were not for them, as can be discerned both from the loosely-swinging, casual performances of their own quintet on later releases, not to mention the even more informal qualities of the Best Coast Jazz sides.

Clifford, as his fans are all too well aware, perished June 26, 1956 when his car was involved in an accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He was en route to Chicago for an engagement at the Blue Note, where he and Max had scored such a resounding success on an earlier booking. Max has since taken over the solo leadership of the quintet.

Herb Geller, whose alto is another shining feature of these sides, is one of those rare West Coast jazzmen actually born and raised in Los Angeles. He has been heard in numerous sessions on this label, including his own sextet date on MG 36040 and a Dinah Washington album, MG 36065. Herb’s alternate on this date was another fine alto saxophonist, Joe Maini Jr., who claims the unusual distinction of having been presented with an instrument by none other than the immortal Charlie Parker. Born in Providence, RI, in 1930, son of a guitarist, he worked with the bands of Alvino Rey, Claude Thornhill and others before going into freelance work around Los Angeles.

The tenor sax man, Walter Benton, has rarely been heard on records, having played with various small combos around Seattle. Only twenty-three years old, he is a protégé of drummer Kenny Clarke and has been gigging in California since his discharge from the Army a couple of years ago.

The rhythm section, in addition to Max, includes Kenny Drew, a twenty-eight year old New Yorker who has been in night clubs or record dates with Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and Lester Young and spent a year or two touring with Buddy DeFranco. Curtis Counce, the bass man, was born in 1926 in Kansas City and settled in Los Angeles in the mid-40s. Featured off and on with Benny Carter and the late Wardell Gray, Billy Eckstine, and Shorty Rogers, he toured Europe with Stan Kenton‘s band in the spring of 1956.

So much for the men. The music needs very little explanation, for there is only one tune to a side, and it speaks for itself that the men all felt sufficiently at home with the tunes, and with each other, to want to continue their improvisations almost indefinitely. Autumn in New York runs almost as long as autumn itself, while the Caravan trails along for fifteen exciting minutes without so much as a pause for the camels to catch their breath.

In case you may find it a little confusing to distinguish between the saxophone soloists, here is your guidepost. Herb Geller’s alto is heard first on Caravan, followed by Benton’s tenor, which leads directly into alto by Miani. Herb is also heard later in the four-bar chases. On Autumn In York Joe Maini takes the first solo and Geller the closing one.

Clifford is magnificent on both sides, needless to say. His fluency and technical assurance give his work an impact that makes one realized sorrowfully just the extent of the loss jazz suffered with his death; and of course the rhythmic encouragement offered throughout his Caravan solo by Max’s magnificent beat makes the overall effect doubly exciting.

A Clifford Brown Memorial Scholarship fund, aimed at the provision of opportunities for aspiring young musicians, was established shortly after Brownie’s death through the efforts of local Musicians’ Union officials. Worthy though this objective is, and much as we wish it luck, we must admit with gratitude that the greatest memorial to Brownie is the legacy of his recorded works, of which these sides will long be remembered as one of the most inspired and illustrious examples.