Clifford Brown and Max Roach (1974 Japanese Mercury Mono LP)

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Clifford Brown and Max Roach - Clifford Brown and Max Roach | Vinyl LP - 1974 Japanese Mercury Mono Reissue (BT-1331, Nippon Phonogram Co. Ltd.)

Max Roach formed this quintet by inviting Clifford Brown to join him in New York in 1954. They selected the remaining musicians together. Harold Land on tenor, Richie Powell on piano and George Morrow on bass completed the group. They recorded the core of this album across three days in Los Angeles in August 1954, with two further tracks added at a New York session in February 1955 before EmArcy released the 12-inch LP that brought all seven pieces together.

Victor Young's "Delilah" was an unlikely choice. The theme from a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic had no obvious jazz pedigree. Brown plays it at eight and a half minutes without losing the melody's character, the exotic minor-key writing a natural fit for his warm, mid-range tone. Bud Powell's "Parisian Thoroughfare" follows, Brown and Land pushing against Roach's tempo changes with the ease of a group that had already developed genuine collective thinking in the few months since its formation.

"Daahoud" and "Joy Spring" became standards. Both are built on chord sequences with mid-progression key changes that challenge soloists; both have been recorded many hundreds of times since Brown made them here. "Joy Spring" was written for his wife, whom Roach had introduced to Brown when she was working on a thesis arguing that jazz was inferior to classical music. Brown spent time convincing her otherwise. "Jordu," Duke Jordan's blues-based piece, closes Side B with a version that Gary Giddins later called among the finest performances on the record. "The Blues Walk" and "What Am I Here For" complete the programme.

This is the 1974 Japanese Mercury mono reissue (BT-1331), manufactured by Nippon Phonogram Co. Ltd.