Cedar Rapids Gazette
Les Zacheis : 07/23/1961

The little-heralded Impulse label comes through with still another fine jazz record in The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones.

The title is a little far-fetches. There is nothing incredible about Kai or his sidemen.

Kai being one of the 3 finest modern jazz trombonists in the country today, it is only natural that he would surround himself with top-flight musicians when he headed for the recording studio. This is a group with a front line of a full trombone section plus rhythm.

Great excitement is generated as the trombone section executes brilliantly the intelligently-scored riffs and breaks for plenty of improvised solos by Winding and his men.

This is especially good in stereo as it has excellent separation and definition.

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Charlotte News
Jerry Reece : 02/11/1961

For Homebodies: More and more, good and better jazz are arriving in town daily. The array and selection is becoming dizzying.

We mentioned last week a new label, Impulse, that’s kicking off with four really find packages. Ray Charles Genius Plus Soul and Gil Evans Out of the Cool were reviewed here.

The remaining two albums contain work by a hornman who’s become somewhat a local favorite – Kai Winding.

Kai visited Charlotte twice during 1960, once for a J.C. Smith concert and the second for a week’s stand at the Starlite supper club.

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The other album is The Incredible Kai Winding Trombones. It features the band that Kai was touring with and it is probably jazzdom’s most unusual in makeup – four trombones, piano, bass and drums.

If you like trombones, you’ll love this one. It’s jazzy without being raucous and swings without going so far out as to lose the neophyte.

The riffs are not repetitious even though most of them (naturally) are trombone solos. All in all, a neat bundle of crisp, cool horn notes.

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Down Beat : 06/08/1961
Leonard Feather : 3.5 stars

Like most of his albums since the formation of the Winding septet, this is almost all bone but not without marrow. Winding wrote all but two of the arrangements, and while he may be inclined occasionally to write off the top of his pen (witness the cliché 3-4-5-5-6-7-7-8-9 final phrase on Blackbird) his scoring generally is functional and puts the instrumentation to pleasant use.

Coffee, one of three tracks on which Bill Evans is heard, comes off particularly well, with some plangent, plunging bass trombone by Faulise. Impulse, a piece that goes back to the Jay-and-Kai days, is a bristling reworking of the I’ll Remember April changes; Speak Low, scored by Starling, gains considerably from the presence of Olatunji. Michie, Winding’s dedication to his younger daughter, is provided with an intriguing twofold treatment, the second partly in long meter. Winding blows some fine blowsly blues on Doodlin’.

This modestly agreeable LP deserved a more fitting title. Webster defines incredible as “too extraordinary and improbable to admit of belief.” I’m sure Winding would be the last to make this claim for his team.

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Liner Notes by Tom Stewart
January 1961

When Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson abandoned their five-piece group roughly four years ago, Kai decided to see what would happen with a seven-piece unite comprising a complete trombone section as the front line. The odds against success must have been considerable and some people may have wondered who would listen to four trombones for any length of time. But Kai has developed the septet into one of jazz’s most-in-demand groups – one that works not only steadily, but also in many contexts other than the usual night-club circuit. The group works college concert dates, banquets and dances just as readily as the jazz clubs. Kai has experimented in the past with various doublings within the section (mellophone, trombonium, euphonium, bass trumpet, etc), but has always returned to the two-tenor, two-bass trombone format as being the most logical. The range of color and texture, not to mention the considerable spread, that these four horns can achieve is sometimes surprising. Of course, Kai’s scoring for the section has a lot to do with this. Tight voicing (Impulse), open voicing (Black Coffee), muted passages (Bye, Bye, Blackbird) and the separation of the tenor trombones and bass trombones into two sections (Doodlin’) are examples. While this is not a history-changing group in any sense, it is obvious that there is as much enjoyment in the playing of these pieces as there is in the listening to them. After all, one of the most important aspects of jazz music is the swing in it. And when here’s swing in it, it’s fun, both for the man in front of the mike and the man behind the hooker of Red-Eye. All of the arrangements are by Kai with the exception Speak Low, which was written by Ray Starling, and Lil Darlin’, which was written by Bill Rubenstein.

The Music
Speak Low has a Latin flavor and features African conga drummer Olatunji, who has been appearing with Herbie Mann’s Afro-Cuban group. The ensemble “punches” out a background figure in support of the lead horn on the opening chorus. Solos are by Kai, Ross Tompkins and Olatunji.

Lil Darlin’ is a Neal Hefti composition which has been very popular with the Count Basie band. It gets the characteristic slow treatment here, but with a nice lift to it. Kai and Ross again have solos and the trombones play in cup mutes throughout.

Doodlin’ is one of Horace Silver‘s better studies in “down-home” blues. The bass trombones go their own way in parts of the theme to create a fine contrapuntal effect. Kai gets off two choruses of good lusty trombone. Ross Tompkins plays some crisp and idiomatic piano lines before the horns return to restate the theme. Ray Starling’s mellophone leads the ensemble in a little shout figure at the end.

Love Walked In is played at slow-ballad tempo and demonstrates Kai’s less exuberant side and his wide-vibratoed tone. The piano solo is again by Ross Tompkins.

Some feeling of the Cha-Cha creeps into Mangos. This is another good example of the bass trombone being utilized independently of the others. Kai again solos after the ensemble chorus and Olatunji has sixteen bars on the conga drum. The clave beat is supplied by Ray Starling.

Impulse (based on the changes of I’ll Remember April) is a piece written by Kai some time ago which he used to play in the quintet with J.J. Johnson. Taken up-tempo, the order is: ensemble, Kai (one chorus), Ross (one chorus) “fours” with Ephie Resnick, drums and Kai, respectively, then ensemble. Listen to the way Kai rips into the seventeenth bar of the opening chorus.

A moderately-slow Black Coffee opens with Bill Evans‘ piano over a trombone background. Kai solos for twelve bars, then leads the horns through the bridge. Evans splits the last twelve with the trombones and Kai returns to play the second bridge. The bass trombone solo in the last section is played by Paul Faulise.

The trombones play in straight mutes throughout Bye, Bye, Blackbird. Kai stays close to the melody in the first chorus and ad libs the second. Bill Evans follows with one of his typically logical, lucid solos. The next trombone solo is played by Jimmy Knepper.

Michie (slow) and Michie (fast) are dedicated to Kai’s youngest daughter, Michelle. The former is a ballad of two choruses on which Kai solos for sixteen bars.

Michie (fast) is basically the same theme extended from thirty-two to fifty-two bars in the following manner: the first four bars are doubled (eight bars) and the second four remain the same (total of twelve bars); applied to the first three eight-bar phrases, this gives a total of thirty-six bars; all of the last eight bars are doubled (sixteen). The solo order after the opening ensemble is: Kai, Ross Tompkins and Ephie Resnick. Al Beldini gets in some tasty drum fill-ins on the last chorus. The trombone breaks at the end are played by Kai.