Search - JFK Quintet :: New Jazz Frontiers from Washington

An obscure gem ...

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 10/06/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Cannonball Adderley really had ear for good music and could easily discover new talents. His best move was to discover Wes Montgomery and to suggest to Riverside's people to take him as soon as possible in a recording studio and to record him. But Wes was not the only Cannonball discovery (even if Wes surely has been the best). Chuck Mangione and his Brother Gap has been discovered by Cannonball too and Chuck had a great career in music. This JFK Quintet was another Cannonball discovery. The music is very similar to Cannonball music. It's a fresh (for the time) kind of bluesy hard bop with happy lines and a positive felling throughout. The line up is: Ray Codrington trumpet, Andrew White alto, Harry Kilgo piano, Walter Booker Jr, doublebass, Carl newman drums. The program is strictly linked with the blues. Apart from a couple of standards that you can easily recognize by their titles ("polkadots" and "dancin'" ..) the others are hard bop originals by the combo. Credits for the writing go to Codrington and White. The year is 1961. It is not an essential record in a sense, but it is surely a really nice example of the freshness of the sixties hard bop."