Billboard : 11/23/1959

Altoist Lou Donaldson is featured with the Three (Gene Harris, Andy Simpkins, Bill Dowdy) Sounds here and the merger is a good one. Donaldson blows brightly and the rhythm group backs him in solid fashion. Tunes include Three Little Words, Just Friends and Blue Moon, plus a few originals. Good, listenable modern jazz.

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Cashbox : 12/05/1959

Donaldson‘s alto playing is exciting and stimulating. Whether lacking in inventiveness and originality, he still is a compelling performer. The rhythm accompaniment by the 3 Sounds never lacks in aggressiveness, driving sturdily behind Donaldson, and displaying its complete accord as a unit. Selections include Three Little Words, Just Friends and Parker‘s Confirmation, on which the altoist shows his debt to Bird. A swinging, enjoyable set.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 12/13/1959

The three in question are The Three Sounds, a sort of superior jazz cocktail lounge group in which the pianist is a full-fledged Red Garland imitator. The backing for Donaldson‘s virile, Parker-inspired style also is too weak for what he is doing even though it does swing. Donaldson, however, blows up a storm and is well worth hearing.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 11/29/1959

The “LD” is the alto saxophonist, Lou Donaldson; the “Three” are “The Three Sounds” Harris, Simpkins and Dowdy, here working as a rhythm section. The overall effect is one of excessive busyness on the part of everybody including the author of the liner notes.

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Down Beat : 01/07/1960
John S. Wilson : 3 stars

Donaldson already has shown that he is a slickly swinging offshoot of Charlie Parker who has a sense of direction and a polish that are missing from most of the other Parker-bred altos. But while there is always velocity in his attack, he produces a sound that is sufficiently constant and unchanging to become monotonous after a while.

These selections with the Three Sounds illustrate both the swinging drive and the lack of variety that characterize his work. Pianist Harris is a chugging, charging soloist who would be a good deal more interesting if he did not construct all his solos on one basic pattern. This is a perfectly presentable set but somewhat pointless – like one more Jonah Jones LP.

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Liner Notes by Jack Maher

In contrast to their first album which was pure trio, the Sounds take on the accompanying duties that brought them such acclaim on L.D. Plus 3. Behind Lou Donaldson they work as an accomplished rhythm section laying down a good, solid rhythmic underfooting for Lou, and adding bits and pieces of encouragement that influence and aid his improvisation.

As a unit The Three Sounds play well together, something that has had a chance to develop through three years of constant association. Their time feeling and figures are very nearly inseparable, and they have the rather rare quality in these days of disunity of being able to anticipate one another’s improvisations. As soloists who improvise Gene Harris exhibits a sure grasp of what he’s attempting to do; bassist Simpkins has a full sound and a fine feeling for time; and drummer Dowdy is never noisy or over-labored.

Of all the saxophonists that use Charlie Parker as a jumping off point for their style and their sound, Lou Donaldson is one of the few who have refined and added something to that style that is distinctly his own. In contrast to a good many Parkerists, Lou plays in tune as much as is humanly possible; has broadened the sometimes pinched sound associated with that alto style to its fullest point, and he constructs melodic ideas that often develop into logical chorus and half chorus thoughts rather than a patchwork of bits and pieces culled from famous records. Oh sure, you’ll hear familiar quotes attributable to Parker in his playing, but they’re more occasionally remembered phrases than a whole vocabulary.

A little more than a year ago, a number of musicians that had been touring the Washington, D.C. area spoke in glowing terms of The Three Sounds. This group was something of a house band and featured trio that operated out of two clubs: the Spotlight and the Hollywood. According to the admiring musicians, this group was a positive joy with which to work and a delight to listen to. If you’ve ever had occasion to hear, as I have, how musicians complain about palsied drummers, deaf bass players and one-key pianists, you know this was a rare compliment.

Some club owners in small towns (and sometimes in large cities) like to save money by using local talent as the rhythm section for a well-known star, but too often the rhythm sections are far inferior to the star, and, as a result, they seldom get the best of all possible performances from the star. The whole business of the house accompanist is something that has probably beset the featured soloist from the year One. As a matter of fact, there’s a story that’s told of a very famous lute player who, in pre-Christian Greece, was making the long journey from Athens to Thebes for a two week gig in that latter city. When he returned a fellow musician asked him how the engagement had gone. “Man,” said the lute player, “it was pretty awful. Those out-of-town rhythm sections are murder.”

The musicians passing through Washington, though, had no such comment for The Three Sounds. Kenny Burrell, Miles Davis, Horace Silver and Sonny Stitt all raved about the group. Horace Silver was so enthused that he was instrumental in getting Blue Note to record the group (The Three Sounds Blue Note 1600); and Stitt took them on tour with him.

Uppermost in an appreciation of Lou’s playing is his sound and his articulation. The sound is especially intriguing in that it has all the obvious Parker traits (particularly the keen edge that turns to shrillness when played incorrectly by others) and yet there’s something distinctly Donaldson about it. It might be described this way: Lou has taken the tension that’s inherent in the Parker sound and added to it a fullness that’s reminiscent of an earlier age in jazz. It’s a fullness that’s more evident in the playing of pre-Parker altoists and it adds depth and body to the overall sound. Lou’s not afraid to use vibrato, and he can use it without sounding schmaltzy, so that on a number of these tracks you get a clear, simple, vibrant statement of the melody, as well as vigorous improvisation.

The articulation we were speaking of is not so much unique as it is correct. Lou places each note in its proper place with crispness and a crackling vitality. He has a fine feeling for the time sequence and cracks his melodic line like a finely balanced whip.

A record date like this is usually a one-shot thing, and, like any other performance that puts musicians on the spot, it is more likely to be a guide to the consistency they are able to come through with than an irrevocable reflection of ultimate genius. By that standard, the only true standard really, Lou Donaldson stacks up as one of the most rewarding modern alto men to listen to. Although performances may vary to some degree from LP to LP, and track to track, Lou’s work, time and time again, achieves a high level of consistency. He is always competent, always professional, but more often than not, you’ll hear something unique and stimulating in his playing. And why not? He’s got good sound, precise and solid articulation and a fine feeling for rhythm. He’s got everything going his way.

Since all the tracks here follow the more or less established pattern of opening choruses by horn, then choruses by piano and/or bass, I don’t believe there’s any great need for an overambitious, chronological summary of who plays what and where. There are a few things, however, that I feel that might stand notation.

Three Little Words is taken at a rapid tempo and shows off Lou’s articulative quality to a fine degree. It also contains one of the better solos by Gene Harris and also shows off the tight knit coordination between Gene and Dowdy. Three times they slam down together upon three-quarter time figures during Gene’s chorus.

Smooth Groove, like the faster Jump Up are both blues and built upon supremely simple riffs. Lou gets a very basic feeling on these tunes, he uses an aggressive simplicity, leaning heavily on the open feeling of the riff, and then builds and interpolates that opening figure and succeeding figures into a complex of rapid-fire eighth-notes. Again, on both these tunes, the rhythm section rolls along underneath Lou in a loose concept of time.

Although there are no ballads (or rather tunes in ballad tempo) in this album, Lou manages to retain the ballad quality on Don’t Take Your Love from Me, Blue Moon and Just Friends. On the first of these Lou plays a simple, straightforward statement of the melody with a richness that is rare among alto men of his genre. After short choruses by Simpkins and Harris, Lou plays an amazing double-time chorus that retains much of the rich texture of the opening and yet leaps and dances in an intricacy of moving figures.

Now, if you just sit back and put this record on your turntable you’ll get at the real business at hand – listening to Lou Donaldson and The Three Sounds. As Lou said when I met him recently in Count Basie’s, “A musician who really plays jazz has to have it here, in the heart.” And I think that you’ll realize, no matter what your particular jazz preferences might be, that both Lou and the Sounds do have it “here.”