Billboard : 08/11/1958
Two stars

Louis Smith, whose trumpet style is derivative of both Parker and Miles Davis, appears to be turning into one of the more capable of modern trumpet men according to his work on this new album. He has imagination and technique and he uses both well. Tunes on this set include three originals and two standards. Best sides are Smithville and Embraceable You. Modern fans of all styles should dig this set.

—–

Audio
Charles A. Robertson : December, 1958

Since his recorded debut on this label in the spring of this year, Louis Smith has fallen heir to the trumpet post in the Horace Silver Quintet. The title tune, a rugged, basic blues of his own devising, indicates his certain potential as a creative jazz force and his growth should be accelerated under the watchful eye of his new employer. In this, and a lyrical Embraceable You, he plays well-ordered choruses with a clean, full-bodied tone. The brisker numbers find him more concerned with musical content than technical flamboyance, a pleasant change from several new names on his instrument in recent years.

A distinct help toward putting Smith at ease is the zestful Charlie Rouse, a mobile and seasoned veteran of the tenor sax, whose conception follows a similar line. Pianist Sonny Clark adds an absorbing solo on the blues and is invaluable throughout. Paul Chambers plays bowed bass on Wetu, and Art Taylor drums with restraint.

—–

San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 10/12/1958

Another excellent showcase for the young eastern trumpeter – even better, I should say than his first LP. Charlie Rouse is on tenor, with Sonny Clark, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor in the rhythm section.

—–

Down Beat : 12/25/1958
John A. Tynan : 3 stars

For his second album, Tennessee trumpeter Smith settled for an opening, ponderously slow blues; two standards; and two original lines of his own, Wetu and Later. Neither of the latter, (based on Lover, Come Back and After You’ve Gone, respectively), shows a particular gift for truly original embellishment. The same must be said for Smith’s improvisatory ideas as a jazz soloist.

Avowedly in the Clifford Brown division of jazz trumpeters, Smith unfortunately falls far short of approaching Brownie’s creative originality. The newcomer is a strong, assertive player with a fat, sometimes pleasing tone marred by an overall monotony of sound. Coupled with a relatively shallow pool of ideas, this monotony lends a tediousness to his playing.

Rouse, as usual, is bustling, vigorous, and exciting. Clark is generally light-fingered and tasteful, though he changes his coat for the funky blues garment of Soulville – a not-too-successful transference in view of his particular, delicate keyboard style.

The Chambers and Taylor team are, as usual, right in there, as the saying goes. Paul solos arco on Wetu and manages to get pretty muddled toward the end. Art concludes the album with a high-explosive barrage on Later.

In sum, the rating is for Rouse and the rhythm section.

—–

Liner Notes by Robert Levin

Modern jazz trumpet, after Dizzy Gillespie, took form in two distinctive concepts. One of the concepts remained closely allied to that of Gillespie’s and had its foremost exponent in Fats Navarro, of whose approach Gillespie was as much the animator as the precursor. Navarro continued Gillespie’s “hot” – extroverted, “virtuoso” tradition and made only minor alterations which his own individuality naturally brought about, while Miles Davis (who, like Navarro, was originally a direct disciple of Gillespie’s) broke away almost entirely and initiated a “cooler”, introspective and more lyrical style. Davis’ method, which was probably motivated by his awareness of his, at that time, comparatively limited range and technical facilities (he once said “I realized I could never play all those notes, so I decided to play just the ones that counted.”) necessarily relied on an economy of notes, a considerably subdued sonority and a sense of conciseness. Clifford Brown (who was, basically, a descendent of Gillespie and Navarro) was one of the first of the young trumpet players, who attempted to integrate certain of the more lyrical characteristics of Davis’ approach with a virtuoso attack, to have the capacity to assimilate qualities of both, but he lacked Davis’ prerequisites of discipline and compression and died before he was able to develop them to the point where he could produce a successful consolidation. His project has been inherited by a group of relative “newcomers” that includes Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Bill Hardman and, most recently, Louis Smith.

Smith has talents and perceptions, akin to Brown, that could enable him to accomplish something of a fusion of these styles. He is also, I think, indicating the ability to overcome the more immediate problems that prevented Brown from reaching this goal. I am thinking, specifically, of a marked over-concern with, and undisciplined talent for, sensational mechanics that is particularly and naturally prevalent with young virtuoso musicians. Smith, like Brown, possesses an extraordinary mobility – a wide range and a crackling exuberance. But such powers have hurt as many musicians as they have aided because too often technique is relied on to the point where it becomes, in a sense, a means and an end in itself, resulting in the neglect of substantial musical content that it should be projecting. Smith seems to me to have a good depth of musical intelligence and intellect to support and supplement his physical skills and appears to be approaching, through a developing sense of control and order, a solid melding of these components.

Born on May 20, 1931 in Memphis, TN, Smith, whose first Blue Note LP was BLP 1584, began his study of the trumpet when he was thirteen and played it in his high school and college bands (Tennessee State, which he attended on a scholarship). He continued his education with post-graduate work (majoring in Music) at the University of Michigan and was drafted into the Army in 1954. Upon his discharge he went to Atlanta, GA which has since remained his home base and where, at this writing, he is currently teaching and leading his own groups. He will probably join Horace Silver in early June as Art Farmer‘s permanent replacement.

Thirty-four year old Charlie Rouse was born in Washington, D.C. and had his first important musical experiences with Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie during the early and middle forties. Later, he worked with Duke Ellington for a year and freelanced, mainly in New York City, from 1950 until ’56, when he co-formed “Les Jazz Modes” with Julius Watkins. Owing to his years, Rouse has had occasion to hear and digest, first hand, pre-Parker as well as post-Parker thought and what he plays today, while it has been ambiguously termed “hard bop”, has very strong ties with the jazz mainstream. You will hear, frequently, elements of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, as well as Parker and Sonny Rollins, in Rouse’s lines which have become increasingly fluent within the past several years.

Sonny Clark, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor comprise the sturdy, inwardly and outwardly propulsive, but unobtrusive rhythm section. Pianist Clark, born in Herminie, PA in 1931, has been greatly influenced, stylistically, by Bud Powell and Horace Silver and more generally by Thelonious Monk. He is a strong accompanist and an able soloist who has worked with such diversified musicians as Buddy DeFranco, the Lighthouse All-Stars, Wardell Gray, Zoot Sims, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Mingus, etc. Chambers was born sixteen miles northwest of Herminie (in Pittsburgh) and four years later than Clark. Already held in extremely high regard by his colleagues, Chambers has continued to explore the melodic capacities of the bass without neglecting its primary function as a rhythm instrument. He has been with Miles Davis since the latter half of 1955. Art Taylor was born in New York City in 1929. He is a particularly tasteful drummer in the Roach–Art Blakey tradition who has played with Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, and the “Jazz Lab”, among many others.

Smith makes the basic statement on the basic theme in Smithville – a blues that might make Horace Silver envious, and which begins the session. It is easily the best recorded example of his work thus far. Rouse, Clark and Chambers also contribute effective solos.

Rouse (who is particularly passionate here), Smith, Clark and Chambers (bowed) take turns blowing on a function set of changes in the rousing Wetu.

Embraceable You casts Smith in a more lyrical role which he handles with a gruff sensitivity. Clark plays a brief interlude and Rouse enters to offer a subtle shading for Smith before the close.

There Will Never Be Another You and Later provide ample blowing space for the entire quintet, and they take advantage of it with a progressively heated success of expressive solos.