Ernie Wilkins - Top Brass (1955/2018)

  • 11 Sep, 14:14
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Artist:
Title: Top Brass
Year Of Release: 1955/2018
Label: Savoy Records
Genre: Jazz
Quality: 320 kbps | FLAC (tracks)
Total Time: 00:46:14
Total Size: 112 mb | 293 mb
WebSite:

Tracklist:

01. 58 Market Street
02. Trick Or Treat
03. Speedway
04. Dot's What
05. Top Brass
06. Willow Weep For Me
07. Imagination
08. It Might As Well Be Spring
09. The Nearness Of You
10. Taking A Chance On Love
11. Blues In 6/4
12. Trumpets All Out

Although he was a better than average saxophonist with Count Basie, by the time of these 1950s sessions for Savoy, Ernie Wilkins was working exclusively as an arranger and composer. Most of the music within this compilation comes from a 1955 session with trumpeters Donald Byrd, Ray Copeland, Ernie Royal, Idrees Sulieman, and Joe Wilder, pianist Hank Jones, bassist Wendell Marshall, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Four of the first five tracks are swinging originals by Wilkins, and there's also an obscure Johnny Mandel blues, "Dot's What." The remaining music from the first session is a ballad medley where each trumpeter is featured in turn playing a personal favorite, all of which have become time-tested standards. If there's any complaint about this studio date at all, it is the excess reverb used at times, which is surprising due to Rudy Van Gelder's usually impeccable sound. The bonus tracks are from another Wilkins-led session from 1957; trumpeters Art Farmer, Charlie Shavers, Emmett Berry, and Harold "Shorty" Baker join Royal, with Don Abney taking over on piano and Bobby Donaldson on drums. Both of Wilkins' originals, "Blues in 6/4" and "Trumpets All Out," are enjoyable even if they never became widely known. Because reissues of Savoy dates seem to surface and go out of print with blazing speed (this 2001 issue was evidently licensed to Atlantic), fans of Ernie Wilkins are advised not to linger in purchasing this recommended CD.