Customer Reviews

Blues Walk

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Lou Donaldson made his mark with this one...probably his best, then again this was 1958 and he had many more albums to cut. He was young and inventive and he made his own tune "Blues Walk" a classic. Take this and then jump to the second cut "Move" another legitimate bop standard up there with anything written by anybody...in fact the entire CD is up there with anything ever written......and why I don't see it on anyones Jazz To Have Lists can only be explained by pure oversight or lack of record company hype (support)...I know, a lot of great Jazz came out of the 1950's but this one is a definitive stand out. I write about music but never recommend anything...but...forget about Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins for a minute and get this album...it catches every mood and rises to the top of all the Blue Note releases... you just can't put it down.

Although Lou is wonderfully facile in this Blue Note session from the late 1950s, it's Herman Foster, the great pianist, who steals the show, with convincing evidence that a complex harmonic instrument need not be treated as another variant on the Horace Silver/Bud Powell single-note theme. Foster's highly sophisticated two-handed harmonies in "Play Ray", a medium tempo blues for Barretto, are worthy of transcription. This is a virtuoso pianist with an aggressive, percussive approach which is atypical of Blue Note recordings of the era. The intensity of Foster's attack in Denzil Best's "Move" is phenomenal. Check it out.

Blues walk is a classic 50's hard bob/bebop recording. What sets the album apart from other albums of the same era is the subtle congo playing of Ray Barretto. While it may seem commonplace today to throw an extra percussionist in to spice things up, this was one of the first "straight ahead" bebop recordings that incorporated a congo player into an album that was not a "latin jazz" album. Further the playing of Barretto was not overwhelming, which was the key to the success of the album. The overall effect was fantastic. There is great interplay between the band, Barretto and Donaldson. Most critics would rate this as Donaldson's best overall album and I agree. He's just starting to leave a straight ahead "charlie parker" style of playing for a more soul inspired style of playing. While I enjoy his later albums as well, I think it is this "crossroads" album that is his most unique and beautiful recording.

This is Jazz 101 and Jazz at its best. This is great for beginners or jazz lovers.