Billboard : 04/07/1956
Score of 78

The material making up this package has been available previously in Prestige 10-inch LPs (Nos. 109 and 123). Johnson, Winding and Green are each heard in four selections with entirely different personnels. Johnson, recording in 1949, was backed by an outstanding group that included Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, John Lewis and Max Roach. Winding‘s set dates from that same year, and on that occasion Brew Moore, Gerry Mulligan, George Wallington and Roy Haynes were aboard. Bennie Green, in a 1951 session, had Eddie Davis, (Big Nick) Nicholas, Rudy Williams and Art Blakey among his colleagues. This is still a top-notch anthology of modern trombone playing.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

The trombone has been a vital instrument since jazz’s earliest days. The trombonists featured here are three of the finest of their or any other era. The groups here are very different in character although all are in the modern idiom. A cross-index of modern trombone playing as well as other contemporary solo techniques and styles is afford by a wide variety of material.

Jay Jay Johnson Sextet

The velvet sound and precise attack of Jay Jay Johnson are well displayed in this set. He is considered, for good reason, to be the finest on his instrument in the modern era.

Jay Jay wrote Fox Hunt, in which Kenny Dorham calls us to the hounds, and Opus V. John Lewis‘ Elysses is traversed in a much smoother manner than would a Parisian taxi and Sonny Rollins gives us a modern blues to ruminate in Hilo.

Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, and John Lewis are the soloists in addition to their leader Johnson. Kenny lists Opus V as one of his favorites among his own solos. Sonny plays with moving imagination throughout one of his first recording dates, John is refreshing and witty and Jay Jay is typically facile and fecund. Max Roach adds some trenchant comments on Fox Hunt, where he slays a goodly number of the little red beasties while fracturing the listeners, and Elysses, where he weaves in and out of the boulevard traffic adroitly.

Kai Winding Sextet

This is the group that Kai had during late 1949 and 1950. They played at the Roost and when that club was shuttered they moved to Bop City. When they weren’t playing gigs, they would jam together at private studios.

Gerry did writing and much arranging for the group and George also contributed originals. Waterworks is Gerry’s, Bop Mountain Kai’s and Sid’s Bounce was penned by a pianist from Pittsburgh named Jerry Kaminsky. Broadway was one of the holdover tunes from the Swing era, one which has long been in favor among this group of musicians. Any band that Gerry Mulligan has something to do with is very likely to have Broadway in the books.

The playing here is vigorous. Kai blows some of his brash biting horn. Brew swings along, alternatively lazy and hard. Gerry as usual blows from his shoetops and George contributes some of his inimitable gems. Notice the way he paraphrases the intro on Bop Mountain in his solo.

Bennie Green Septet

In these recordings Bennie blows earthily and in Green Junction and and Flowing River reminds me of Dicky Wells
in more than one instance. He is abetted solowise by the equally earthy Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis on Green Junction and the frantic Whirl-A-Licks which shows itself to be the father of Blow Your Horn and Say Jack. Rudy Williams, better known on tenor and alto, left a baritone solo for posterity on Flowing River. Rudy met an untimely death in a fishing boat accident in the summer of 1954. The set closes with a change of mood as Bennie caressingly swings Pennies From Heaven. Teddy Brannon, who incidentally is Bennie’s cousin, puts in his two cents here.