Billboard : 04/29/1957
Special Merit Jazz Album

In spite of the plethora of recently releases Sims packages, this is an indispensable set. With ideal assistance from J. Williams, G. Johnson and K. Totah, Zoot is at his earthy, emotional best. There are many tenor men who play the Lester Young line, but few have the ingenuity, talent and definable dignity of Sims. To show it is to sell it.

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Cashbox : 05/04/1957

Celebrated sax man Zoot Sims is on hand in this Argo issue for 4 relaxed, almost exclusively with Sims in the spotlight, sessions on a bill of standards (The Man I Love) and jazz entries (55th And State). Sims seizes his situations with smooth and penetrating tenor and alto pointers. Johnny Williams, at the keyboard, gets in some skillful licks. Sims has the follow to make this platter good jazz stock.

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Miami Herald
Fred Sherman : 05/05/1957

Sax is here to stay. If you don’t believe it, try Zoot, music by Mr. Sims quartet featuring Knobby Totah on bass, Gus Johnson on drums and John Williams at the piano. This is a rich and mellow experience with the tenor and the alto. Zoot Sims, one of the Four Brothers of the 1948 Herman Herd, proves he belongs in the first ranks of jazz as he swings through an eight-track program highlighted by a warming Man I Love and a crispy Bohemia After Dark. Bohemia is the one alto number. Rhythm section is excellent, with Totah at the head of the class.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 04/28/1957
Album of the Week

Zoot Sims seems to be the new star in the tenor saxophone business and this album is one of the best he’s made, a free-swinging date in which all the easy grace and effortless rhythm that are Zoot’s specialties are highlighted.

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Down Beat : 05/02/1957
Nat Hentoff : 5 stars

“Less is more,” said an aesthetician several centuries ago while pointing out the power of simplicity, of the direct line in communicating a message. Jack Tracy makes the corollary point for this context in the liner: “Zoot, as Bob Brookmeyer says, ‘plays earthy.’ His is direct, simple, logical, and above all, emotional.”

The album is a wholly spontaneous one, and as such, merits the full rating as one of the more sustained examples of hot jazz improvisation on recent records. Zoot is one of the very few jazzmen who can make 12″ of a one-horn LP a constantly fulfilling experience. His time is apparently as natural in him as his heartbeat (another Tracy point) and his work here is as clear and memorable a definition of what swinging is as you can find. His tone is full and hits with authoritative impact. His conception as aforenoted, is refreshingly direct, lean, never banal or scuffling, and as if cleaned of gratuitous ornamentation by the heat.

There is strong rhythm section support with Totah steady. Gus making me wonder for the hundredth-plus time why Basie let him go, and John WilliamsWilliams] soloing with a fierce, functional incisiveness that complements Zoot well. Can’t find any real complain anywhere. The liner even contains the recording date.

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Liner Notes by Jack Tracy

Zoot Sims has been an active member of the jazz fraternity ever since he joined Kenny Baker‘s orchestra in 1941 at the age of 16. Since that time he has worked with Bobby Sherwood, Bob Astor, Sonny Dunham, Benny Goodman, and an innumerable number of small groups, including that of Gerry Mulligan, which he left in mid-’56 to form his own unit. Yet it has been only of late that his playing has begun to earn the respect among musicians and fans alike that it deserves.

In addition to all his previous credits, Zoot also is the owner of a badge of distinction which can be worn in the lapels of just three other men. Along with Stan Getz, Herbie Steward, and Serge Chaloff, he was one of the original members of the “Four Brothers” saxophone section of the Woody Herman orchestra in 1947 and ’48.

No other section of any jazz band was ever as well-known as the Brothers, due not only to the unique nickname but also because of the artistry of all its members.

In turn, the musicians were all propelled to varying degrees of fame through the association.

Stan Getz made it almost overnight. His solo on Woody’s Early Autumn was a huge hit, and he became the best-known tenor saxist of the past decade, and a winner of seven consecutive Down Beat polls.

Herbie Steward, a musicians’ musician highly respected by his fellow players by his fellow players, retired to the obscurity of Hollywood studios and dance bands early in the ’50s. His lively tone and supple conception were the envy of many a contemporary.

Baritone saxist Serge Chaloff, an amazingly flexible musician, had a roaring career underway until some personal difficulties virtually wrecked it.

And so just two of the brothers remain prominent. Their progress might be likened to that of the hare and the tortoise. Getz flew to fame. Sims has plodded steadily.

Getz is the consummate artist, the brilliant technician with the floating sound. There are times when you will swear there is really nothing left to play after he has finished a solo. He explores every devious, twisting channel.

Zoot, as Bob Brookmeyer says, “plays earthy.” He is direct, simple, logical, and above all, emotional.

I have long held the theory (though certainly is not one evolved by me) that a musician who has found his sea legs and charts his own personal course is just what he plays.

To explain, Roy Eldridge is the same flaming personality as his playing. So is Dizzy Gillespie. The elfin delight in color and sound that pours from Erroll Garner‘s piano is Erroll Garner. Jimmy Giuffre is a calm, dryly humorous student of music.

Zoot Sims is the country boy moved to the city, one who has let enough sophistication stick to him that he can get along with the urbanites. Though he has firm control of his horn, he shrugs off any unnecessary technical bric-a-brac to dig deeply into the blues-based roots of jazz. His playing is piercingly honest and revealing, and though he, too, is of the many who have been influenced by Lester Young, his sound is thicker and fuller, and the beat he evokes is more akin to a heart-beat than a pulse.

Zoot is a swinger planted ankle-deep in loam.

All those qualities are evident in this collection, the first to allow him so much blowing room. He carries it off superbly, from the first booting notes of 920 Special, the old swing era favorite, through Dizzy Gillespie’s Latino Woody’n You.

Quite a remarkable album, this, one which turns a bright bulb on Zoot Sims, tenor saxophonist.

He does not blink.