Five Horns Trading in Real Time
A straightforward blowing session where five front-line players take turns stretching out over walking changes.
Walk into this session and you hear two trumpet players and two saxophonists trading solos over Art Taylor's steady brush work and Doug Watkins' solid walking bass, with Mal Waldron anchoring everything on piano. The temperature is moderate, the pace is cruising — nothing flashy, nothing strained. This is a head arrangement kind of date: simple themes to set the direction, then everybody gets their turn. Gene Ammons leads on tenor, Jackie McLean on alto, Donald Byrd and Art Farmer splitting the trumpet chair. The feel is collegial, almost like a well-organized jam session that someone had the sense to record.
It was cut in 1956 for Prestige, a label that knew how to capture these kinds of spontaneous-sounding dates cheaply and efficiently. AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow called it "an excellent (and rather spontaneous) straightahead session," and that hits the mark — nobody's trying to prove anything beyond their ability to swing. Ammons was a solid tenor player, a workmanlike presence in the bebop ecosystem, and this album sits squarely in that vein: competent, honest, no surprises.
This is early enough in Ammons' career that he was still a journeyman player, taking gigs where they came. The album doesn't rank among his defining records, and the Penguin Guide gave it only two and a half stars. But if you're looking for an unvarnished example of mid-1950s bebop as a working musicians' craft rather than a historical monument, this does the job cleanly.
Who's playing
Doug Watkinsdouble bass
Mal Waldronpiano
Gene Ammonstenor saxophone
Jackie McLeanalto saxophone
Donald Byrdtrumpet
Art Farmertrumpet
Art Taylordrums
Where next?
More by Gene Ammons
Boss Tenor 1960
Bad! Bossa Nova 1962
Boss Tenors: Straight Ahead from Chicago August 1961 1962
"Jug" 1961
The musicians on this record
Love Byrd 1959
Donald Byrd
plays trumpet here
plays trumpet here
4, 5 and 6 1956
Jackie McLean
plays alto saxophone here
plays alto saxophone here
When Farmer Met Gryce 1955
Art Farmer
plays trumpet here
plays trumpet here
Wheelin’ & Dealin’ 1958
Mal Waldron
plays piano here
plays piano here
