Billboard : 11/26/1955
Spotlight on… selection

It takes an album like this to indicate the full extent of the loss to modern jazz in the recent death of Bob Gordon at 28. Gordon, on baritone sax, playing with tenor man Jack Montrose and three other musicians, offers a superb program that now will be doubly treasured by collectors. Montrose, who did the writing for this LP, has a style of unusual scope. He is one of the few who successfully unites far-out modern harmonic ideas with material that is unquestionably jazz – and which is powered by a Basie-style “big beat.” Rhythm section is composed of Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell and Paul Moer. A memorable session.

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Cashbox : 12/03/1955

This is bound to become a big seller for Atlantic. Jack Montrose, who arranged, played and composed, takes the big bow for the excellent results achieved. The swinging little chamber group dishes up delectable ideas and sounds. Jack Montrose emerges as a star of magnificent proportions. Montrose, on the tenor sax, is supported by Bob Gordon, baritone saxist who was recently killed in an auto accident on the coast; Paul Moer, piano; Red Mitchell on bass; and Shelly Manne, drums. A jazz album retailers had better stock in time for the Christmas rush.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 02/11/1956

Montrose, one of the most promising arranger-composers in modern jazz, and the late Bob Gordon, in the loosest and most pleasing date they made together. Montrose’ tenor saxophone grows better and better, and Gordon, of course, was always a big, warm walloper. Five Montrose originals, and four standards, including a moody, gully-low I’m Goin’ To Move to the Outskirts of Town.

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Down Beat : 03/07/1956
Jack Tracy : 5 stars

Montrose, who both writes and plays with refreshing honesty, has a long and rewarding jazz career before him. There is loveliness, thoughtfulness, and unpretentiousness to his music which gives it a non-tarnishable distinction and grace.

His tenor sax is here joined by the baritone of the late Bob Gordon, a man Montrose is going to miss terribly, the piano Paul Moer, and Shelly Manne‘s moving drums.

From the opening notes of the appealing Duet, through Jack’s meditative ballad, April’s Fool, the jumping Dot’s Groovy, a funky Outskirts of Town, and all the rest, this group achieves a sheen and happiness and disarming swing which has kept this LP on my turntable for many hours ever since I received it. Unhesitatingly recommended.

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Liner Notes by Jack Montrose

I like to write in a “chamber group” style because of the intimacy. All the parts are transparent. There is nothing superfluous in chamber music, and there can be nothing superfluous.

Just because a group has four or five instruments, that doesn’t make it a chamber group. The thing that brings it about is the feeling of the players and the approach to the music. It’s a definite feel that grows from learning to love string quartets. A chamber group supplies me with the emotional extremes of dynamics, with the necessary mobility and maneuverability. When I was writing for this album, I was definitely thinking in terms of a chamber group. Not one of the instruments was neglected. My object was to utilize each instrument in its own way. By dynamics, I mean the ability to make a decided contrast; the ability to play fast and soft at the same time, for instance. Nothing is covered up.

A lot of the music in this album is, of course, completely improvised. The purpose of the compositions-arrangements was to establish a mood and organize it. The written parts constitute a framework like an organizational skeleton, within which the improvisation takes place. There should be a strong relation between the two. In the writing, I take special precautions to make a soloist play in a certain mood. I’ll take measures to see that the soloist plays in this mood, like backgrounds that force the soloist to remain in that mood. In this album I felt that the soloists were always in the mood of the composition.

If it’s going to be jazz, there has got to be room for improvisation. It’s not a jazz number if there’s no improvisation, jazz is improvisation. When I write something, it isn’t jazz in itself, it’s merely a competition in the jazz idiom. Jazz is jazz because it’s completely unpredictable.

For me, form is dominated by content. When I begin working, my materials at hand – melody, beat – begin to dictate a form. I may analyze it when I finish it and say, “This is a rondo”, but I won’t start by saying “This will be a rondo”.

Although I’ve been given the opportunity on several occasions, I have never arranged nor composed anything for big jazz bands. Several big band leaders asked me, and I always felt I had to refuse; I don’t agree with what they are trying to do. Most dance bands sound terrible to me. But Basie‘s band thrills me. I don’t know if I could ever write anything for that band; I think I could, and I’d like to try. I’d like to write in the Basie tradition, with my ideas in harmony and counterpoint. But generally, I don’t like big bands. I don’t like brass for the sake of brass or loudness for the sake of loudness. Massive walls of sound, as such, fail to impress me.

I had a college education as a music major, which isn’t a great deal, but it’s more than most jazzmen have. I went to L.A. City and State College. Originally, I’m from Tennessee, and came to Los Angeles at 17. I was interested in music before, and played saxophone and clarinet. I started playing with bands at the age of 14. The only thing I wanted to play was jazz.

I don’t like playing in big bands. I don’t want to play in a section; there is no thrill for me in it at all, no satisfaction.

I haven’t really studied too much, except on my own. But Shorty Rogers helped me a lot. I’d go over and see him and he would point out certain things that you don’t learn in school, but from experience, and I profited from Shorty’s experience… short-cuts and orchestral insights which opened a lot of doors for me. But I never really studied with anyone because I never earned enough to study. With Shorty, it was on a completely friendship basis.

The blues is the most wonderful form. Find a blues player, and you have found a jazz player. Blues is the secret of jazz. It took me years and years to discover that. The impact just blew me up. There are some rhythm and blues records that really thrill me.

I listen to everything I can get my hands on. I’ve got a very good collection of records, not only jazz. I have music from every period: records and scores from the early Baroque period to the string quartets of Schoenberg.

I don’t agree with what a lot of modern jazz composers are doing today. I feel that many of them seem to get away from the essential limitations. A lot of the new jazz I hear is too far out in my opinion. On the other hand, I think Duke Ellington is wonderful. Also, I think Shorty is really important as a writer. He gives you the feeling he really likes and enjoys what he’s doing; he’s honest. I don’t know too many other people like that.

The future of jazz? That’s a difficult question. Ten years from now there will still be the blues; as long as there is jazz music there will be the blues. Whatever changes occur they will not be in the basic concept but in the manner of rendering. There may be new ideas and new approaches, but they will still have to be in the traditional framework. I’ve been studying Bartók a lot; everything he wrote was in a traditional structure. The same must also hold true for jazz.

I met Bob Gordon in 1948. We played together at jam sessions. He was working then, with Alvino Rey, and I was not working. He would always call me when he got into town and we would play together every time we could. Finally, we both joined a group John Kirby formed and we played at the 54 Ballroom in Los Angeles. It was Kirby’s last band before he died; we were with Kirby for two or three months. From then on, there was an amazing rapport between Bob and me. We played together all the time. After a while, when he’d play things I had written, it sounded like he was making them up.

The players on this album are the players of my choice. They possess the great individuality required to play a continuous solo line, and the necessary insight which allows them to play those lines in relation to the other voices and entire composition.

Such a player is Paul Moer, whose ability to accompany is equaled by his talent for interpretation and improvisation.

Such a player is Red Mitchell, who by some caprice of fate has chosen to express his melodic conception through the medium of an instrument whose function is basically rhythmic.

Such a player is Shelly Manne – Shelly the melodic, Shelly the musical, Shelly the inventive, Shelly the epitome of good taste.

And such a player was Bob Gordon. His feeling was contagious, his sound indominable, his time impeccable, the beauty and logic of his thought inexplicable. I learned to write through playing, and it was largely through Bob’s influence that I learned how to play.

Bob Gordon was killed in an automotive accident shortly before the release of this album.