AVID Jazz is proud to introduce an exciting new addition to our Four Classic Album series, Four Classic Jazz Instrumentalists. We continue with Four Classic Jazz Trumpets, a re-mastered 2CD set complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details.
“Louis Smith: Here Comes Louis Smith”; “Booker Little: Booker Little”; “Johnny Coles: The Warm Sound” and “Joe Gordon: Lookin’ Good”
For our next release in this new series we have chosen a diverse range of jazz trumpeters who released their debut albums from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. Louis Smith, a classic case of what might have been? Louis Smith made two classic albums in the 1950s before deciding to leave the music business and enter academia. He returned to recording briefly in the 1970s before disappearing again, only to emerge in the 1990s and 2000s with a string of albums. While, of course, we applaud his personal decision, we can’t help wondering what he might have gone on to do with his prolific talent. And we suspect many of the jazz greats who played with him might have thought the same thing….and the list is impressive….Cannonball Adderley (Buckshot La Funke), Duke Jordan, Tommy Flanagan, Art Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Count Basie, Sonny Stitt, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham and Zoot Sims. Booker Little, coincidently, Booker Little was the cousin of our first featured artist, Louis Smith, however, unlike his cousin, Bookers career was tragically cut short by his early death at 23 years of age. During this short time he worked primarily alongside Eric Dolphy and Max Roach taking time out to record his album “Booker Little” in 1960 which included the fine line up of Wynton Kelly, Tommy Flanagan, Scott La Faro and Roy Haynes. Johnny Coles had a prolific career primarily as a sideman starting out in the early R&B bands for the likes of Earl Bostic and Eddie Vinson before moving into the jazz arena working with Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Mingus, Art Blakey, James Moody and Tina Brooks. He went into the studio with Kenny Drew, Peck Morrison and Charlie Persip to make the classic debut “The Warm Sound” in 1961. Joe Gordon was another fine bop trumpeter who only got to make a couple of albums as leader before tragically dying in a house fire at age 35. He was best known as a sideman for the likes of Charlie Parker, Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie. Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk, Benny Carter, Shelley Manne and Dexter Gordon. In 1961 he went into the studio in L.A. and cut “Lookin’ Good” featuring eight of his own compositions and a band that included his long time friend, the fine altoist Jimmy Woods (AMSC1292) The songs were good, the playing even better, indicating the promise of more to come but which tragically remained unfulfilled.
CD1
1-6: ‘Louis Smith: Here Comes Louis Smith’
1. Tribute To Brownie
2. Brill’s Blues
3. Ande
4. Stardust
5. South Side
6. Val’s Blues
7-12: ‘Booker Little: Booker Little’
7. Opening Statement
8. Minor Sweet
9. Bee Tee’s Minor Plea
10. Life’s A Little Blue
11. The Grand Valse
12. Who Can I Turn To
CD2
1-6: ‘The Johnny Coles Quartet: The Warm Sound’
1. Room 3
2. Where
3. Come Rain Or Shine
4. Hi-Fly
5. Pretty Strange
6. If I Should Lose You
7-14: ‘Joe Gordon: Lookin’ Good!’
7. Terra Firma Irma
8. A Song For Richard
9. Non-Viennese Waltz Blues
10. You’re The Only Girl In The Next World For Me
11. Co-op Blues
12. Marianna
13. Heleen
14. Diminishing
