Billboard : 10/07/1957
Score of 68

A modern blowing date whose chief claim on listener interest is the often excellent tenor playing of Quinichette. Tho the rhythm section is good here Quinichette’s colleagues in the front line are not quite as consistent as they might be, tending to detract from positive appeals of album. Eye-catching cover will attract jazz browser.

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Audio
Charles A. Robertson : February, 1958

After following in the footsteps of Lester Young for most of his career, and filling his chair in the Count Basie band, Paul Quinichette is making a determined effort to develop a more individual style on the tenor sax. To aid in the change, he has on this session the arrangements of pianist Mal Waldron and the presence of John Jenkins and Red Kyner, two adventurous young alto-sax men, and trombonist Curtis Fuller. As he shows on the title tune, Quinichette is dispensing with none of the knack of the veteran swing performer, but it engaged in broadening his style and adding to it in depth. Always highly talented, he is gaining a more personal voice and realizing more of his great potential strength. Waldron’s Blue Dots is a reflective piece, and his Circles is a rhythm tune for a round of solos. Cool-Lypso is some funmaking at the expense of the island beat, with Doug Watkins and Ed Thigpen setting the tempos.

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Glamorgan Gazette
M.E. : 11/07/1958

This long playing album is one of a series which Paul Quinichette recorded for American Prestige, New York, in 1957, towards the end of the freelancing period which followed his retirement from the Count Basie band. Date of this session, the first of the series to be released, was May 10, 1957.

Prior to his joining the Basie band, Quinichette worked with a number of groups, including Jay McShann, Louis Jordan, J.C. Heard and “Hot Lips” Page. He enlisted with Count Basie in 1951, when the latter was reforming his orchestra, and became one of its leading soloists.

In this new Esquire LP, Quinichette is presented in the company of talented young musicians of the bop school.

Pianist Mal Waldron, who wrote all the numbers with the exception of Sunny Side of the Street, is an important member of the rhythm trio. Bassist Doug Watkins, recently with Chet Baker, and Edmund Thigpen, the regular drummer with the Billy Taylor Trio, are the other rhythm men.

This session marked the recording debut of Junior Sylvester (Sonny Red) Kyner, from Detroit. Previously he had played tenor with trombonist Frank Rosolino and alto with drummer Art Blakey.

The other young alto saxophone player featured here is Chicago-born John Jenkins, Jr. who has played with Art Farmer and Charlie Mingus.

The trombone player is 23 years old Charles Dubois Fuller, from Detroit, an Army band companion of Cannonball Adderley and Junior Mance from 1953-1955.

Blue Dots is an exuberant swinging opener, to which all three saxophone players contribute several choruses apiece. Paul Quinichette gives lively examples of his happy, driving style of modern jazz. A trombone solo by Fuller proves him to be a highly competent performer, and the rhythm section is a vital factor in making this track such an exhilarating affair.

All the boys “got rhythm” in the gaily swinging Circles. Important solos are rendered by Kyner, Quinichette and Waldron, and this is an outstanding track. Some fine, lyrical tenor lines are blown by Quinichette in Sunny Side of the Street, while Cool-Lypso consists of a set of lilting choruses with a calypso beat.

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Oakland Tribune
Russ Wilson : 10/13/1957

Paul Quinichette, making his bow and the bopsters, is the standout soloist, though at times he seems ill at ease. Two altos and trombone also are in the front line. Pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Ed Thigpen keep things moving. The rhythmic pattern on Cool-Lypso is interesting.

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San Bernardino County Sun
Jim Angelo : 10/19/1957

Another of the Count‘s men, tenor saxist Paul Quinichette, is starred On The Sunny Side with six other modernists. A Lester-influenced musician of the cool brigade, Quinichette presents four originals – three by pianist Mal Waldron – which allow for lots of blowing room. Solo-wise, the leader and trombonist Curtis Fuller are outstanding with bits of tasty altoing by John Jenkins.

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Washington Post
Paul Sampson : 01/05/1958

A dull set by a tenor saxophonist who usually plays much better.

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Down Beat : 12/12/1957
Leonard Feather : 3.5 stars

Paul Quinichette has few peers among modern tenor men, for time, sound, and mood. On these sides he has plenty of room to stretch his horn. Pianist Waldron provided three slender little boomerangs of themes that come back after a long ad lib field trip. Cool-lypso is the marathon, running a cool 18 1/2 minutes, the first nine minutes of which are played as a rhumba.

Both alto men are capable, though on the basis of this showing it would appear that Jenkins has the edge for time and continuity and Kyner occasionally becomes a little chaotic. Fuller‘s machine-gun is amply supplied with ammunition in eighths and sixteenths; Waldron plays effectively cool, spare piano.

Notwithstanding the inordinate lengths of the tracks, the interest seldom lags. I hope Prestige can continue to build Quinichette, who, if poll figures are any criterion, is the most underrated tenor man in jazz today; potentially he is also one of the greatest.

The cover offers a large closeup of two fried eggs, neither of which was laid on this date.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

The moving rendition of Sunny Side of the Street is not the only sunny thing in this session. Paul Quinichette, as a spiritual descendant of Lester Young, has that free and joyful quality in his driving, blues-dispersed playing. Paul is one veteran whose playing has lost no enthusiasm through the years. The joining of his youthful musical personality with the three youngblood hornmen is yet another factor which makes this session the happy occasion it is.

Paul Quinichette is essentially a Swing musician, one who is called the “Vice Pres” with good reason. Born in Denver, Colorado in 1921, he studied music at Denver University and Tennessee State College and worked with a variety of bands including Jay McShann, Louis Jordan, J.C. Heard and Hot Lips Page. When he left Page in 1951, it was to join Count Basie who was then reforming his orchestra after having led a small group for almost two years. Paul fit in quite naturally with the Basie band and as one of its main soloists had much to do with launching the Count back to the top.

From 1953, when he left the band, Paul has freelanced with his own groups. Earlier in 1957, he was thinking of leaving the music business entirely but after recording a series of LPs for Prestige, this being the first issued, he returned by playing a nightclub engagement in Philadelphia.

Here, Paul is presented with musicians of the Bop school for the first time and the results are stimulating. It seems that Pres and Bird, unlike oil and water, do mix. The arrangements of Mal Waldron, the rapidly growing writer, are a third element which mixes in well with the other two. Mal has a knack of being able to write for individual sessions and fill their needs.

Two young altomen, who appear on certain tracks and alternate on others, are in the Charlie Parker lineage but Sonny Red Kyner leans toward Sonny Stitt while John Jenkins, the more Birdlike, has touches of Jackie McLean in his playing.

Sonny Red was born Junior Sylvester Kyner in Detroit, Michigan on December 17, 1932. He started on C-melody sax in high school and switched to alto in 1949. In that year he started playing with pianist Barry Harris‘ group around Detroit, remaining with him until 1952. In 1954 he switched to tenor and did several months with trombonist Frank Rosolino before returning to the alto and a couple of months with Art Blakey. In April of 1957, Red came to New York and made his recording debut in this session. His favorite alto players are Bird, (as both he and John mentioned, this was almost left unsaid because of the elevated position that Bird has in their minds), Sonny Stitt, Jackie McLean, John Jenkins, and Cannonball Adderley. Red also named Lester Young and Bud Powell as being very close to his heart.

John Jenkins Jr. is from Chicago where he was born on January 3, 1931 and is another pupil of the famous Capt. Walter Dyett of Du Sable High. John began on clarinet and six month slater switched to alto. His baptism of fire came in 1949 at the Roosevelt College sessions promoted by Joe Segal and he continued to play at these swinging affairs during his next seven years in Chicago. In 1955, John did a week apiece in Chicago and Cleveland with Art Farmer when Gigi Gryce was unable to be present due to illness in his family. In December of that same year, he fronted his own quartet at Chicago’s Bee Hive during the Christmas holidays. Concerts and sessions for Joe Segal, who has John’s sincere appreciation for all the help he gave his career, were the main items on the agenda for 1956; musicians such as Ira Sullivan and Johnny Griffin were among the participants. A short stay with Charlie Mingus‘ group opened the New York phase of John’s journey in March of 1957 and he has remained here since then, busying himself with recording. His preferred saxophonists are Bird, the Sonnys, Rollins and Stitt, and Jackie McLean.

Curtis Dubois Fuller is another Detroiter and the most youthful of all the musicians on this recording; his birthday is on December 15, 1934. Curtis waited until his senior year in high school to study music. After learning fundamentals on the baritone horn, he changed to the trombone after graduation. He was in an Army band with Cannonball and Junior Mance from 1953 to 1955 and has since played with Kenny Burrell in 1955 and Yusef Lateef in 1956 before coming to New York in 1957 for the express purpose of joining the Miles Davis group. After a few nights, the group disbanded and Curtis found himself joining many other fine musicians who are out of work in New York but who are able to survive through recording. The Fuller trombone is patterned out of the J.J. Johnson mold with personal turns, a wonderful facility and an ability to shade. Other favorites named by Curtis, in addition to Johnson, are Jimmy Cleveland, Bob Brookmeyer and Urbie Green. As a musical influence, Miles Davis has also been very prominent.

The rhythm is composed of faces and names familiar to Prestige audiences; Mal Waldron, the pianist-writer who is presently accompanying Billie Holiday; bassist Doug Watkins, now with Chet Baker; and Edmund Thigpen, the regular drummer with the Billy Taylor trio. Their rhythmic support makes it evident why they’ve been asked to Prestige sessions many times. Thigpen has really come into his own in the past year.

Mal Waldron’s Blue Dots is the opener. Paul is first, followed by Jenkins and Kyner, each playing three, 12 bar choruses with John leading off. Paul comes up for his second at bat, Curtis Fuller has his first solo and Paul swings for the third time. John, Red and Curtis have two choruses apiece on their second go around before composer Waldron has his say.

Circles, by Waldron, is a “rhythm” type opus with solos by Kyner, Quinichette, Fuller and Waldron.

Side two is the Sunny Side as rendered tenderly by Paul and John Jenkins.

Cool-Lypso, the third of Waldron’s contributions, is what the title implies. The first set of solos by Kyner, Fuller, Quinichette, Jenkins, Waldron and Thigpen are played with the island beat. Then the scene changes to straight 4/4 and a second brace of solos by Kyner, Fuller, Quinichette, Jenkins (3 choruses), Kyner again and Waldron.