Customer Reviews

Mclean's Scene

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A great record for it features two sessions and two bands (all counted seven musicians) with a young but virile Jackie Mac carving the meat. Waldron's piano swings in and out of shadows, while Red Garland seems to play the blues from a lit stage...both are gorgeous but different. Art Taylor stretches a beautiful spine on both sessions, allowing the music to grow straight and strong. Trumpeter Bill Hardman and Jackie trade loose solos on the title track, it's kind of like Jackie's the hare and Bill the tortoise only Jackie sleeps with his eyes open, however, there is nothing frantic about this record...just gentlemen swinging softly. Plus the record is 41 minutes long...highly recommended.

As a listener who's not especially crazy about Mclean's sharp-sour sound, I find that this early Mclean session emphasizing standard chord changes wears better than some of the altoist's more adventurous recordings from the 1960s, especially with the inviting, always swinging piano of Red Garland and immediately identifiable buoyant bass of Paul Chambers (no need even to check the personnel) on loan from Miles Davis for the date. Were the sadly underrated and underrecorded trumpet of Bill Hardman included on all six, instead of three, of the tracks, the CD would receive a higher rating from me. Especially dig Hardman, who takes the first solo on the first number, "Gone With the Wind." He just keeping going, never letting you down in his melodic journey and sounding like he could play another 20 or 30 choruses without repeating himself. In fact, I wish he'd just keep playing, because after this inspired introduction, there's only one direction the rest of the session can take.

The three tunes sans both Hardman and Garland (Mal Waldron suffers by the comparison) support the tune-picking habits of the file downloaders.