Benny Bailey & Phil Woods - Big Brass & Rights of Swing (2013)

This memorable pairing of trumpeter Benny Baileys Big Brass and altoist Phil Woods Rights of Swing unites two albums which illustrate the virtues and the possibilities of the hard bop idiom. Made within months of each other at the start of the 1960s, they share largely the same brilliant players, but use them somewhat differently to achieve outstanding results.

For Big Brass Bailey had a blowing septet that included Woods, pianist Tommy Flanagan and French hornist Julius Watkins, and a programme mostly of originals, including pieces by Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson. Simple arrangements gave the soloists a chance to shine and they took it, with Bailey, Woods, Flanagan and Watkins outstanding on the blues Hard Sock Dance and Mauds Mood (with Woods on bass clarinet), and on Tipsy and Please Say Yes in particular.

Rights of Swing is even better, an ambitious, unfailingly inventive, five-part suite composed and arranged by Woods, with the same group, with minor changes, expanded to an octet that included trombonists Curtis Fuller or Willie Dennis, and baritonist Sahib Shihab. Imaginatively conceived and deftly crafted writing lends the octet a huge sound, while the soloists respond magnificently to the opportunities it offers, notably on Part III (Ballad), the contrapuntal Part IV (Scherzo) and a marvellous Part V (Presto). Its success makes it surprising that Woods didnt attempt this kind of project more often.