(Duke Pearson, piano; Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; James Spaulding and Jerry Dodgion, alto sax; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Garnett Brown, trombone; Gene Taylor, bass; Grady Tate, drums)
Duke Pearson was a pianist and arranger on many of Blue Note’s classic sessions from the sixties. However, budgetary constraints at the label forced much of his work to be performed in trio or quartet settings, with the occasional sextet or septet, such as his work for Donald Byrd on the album ‘A New Perspective.’ When Blue Note was sold to Liberty Records in 1966, this greatly improved the label’s bottom line, and made more adventurous outings with extended personnel much more of a possibility. This 1967 octet date is part of the Rudy Van Gelder Edition and represents the first time this classic date has been released in remastered sound.
Much of the album has a definite Latin twist to it. ‘My Love Waits’ has a lilting bossa nova line with a gorgeous trumpet solo by Freddie Hubbard, along with some beautiful work on piano by Duke Pearson, who was very underrated in the pantheon of jazz pianists. The horn section, consisting of three saxes, trumpet and trombone, make the most of the really hot blowing numbers ‘Chili Peppers’ and ‘Los Malos Hombres,’ which translates to ‘the bad men.’ Duke Pearson felt the number was really technically challenging to play, and if you could master it, you were really baaaddd!
As with most of the entries in the RVG Edition, sound quality is superlative – you’d never guess that this album is forty years old. If there’s any caveat, it would be the relatively short length of the disc, but Blue Note has been very good to include bonus tracks where they exist, and I think they’d have loaded this disc had there been any additional tracks available. Considering the price point, and the high quality of the performances, there should be little room for complaint from anyone. Highly recommended.
TrackList: Chili Peppers; Make It Good; My Love Waits (O Meu Amor Espera); Los Malos Hombres; Scrap Iron, Rotary; Los Malos Hombres (alt. take).
– Tom Gibbs
