Clifford Jordan & John Gilmore - Blowing In From Chicago (1990 Japanese Blue Note Mono Vinyl LP)

Clifford Jordan & John Gilmore - Blowing in from Chicago | Vinyl LP - 1990 Japanese Blue Note Mono Reissue (BLP 1549, BLP 1500 Revival series, Toshiba-EMI)

Blowing in from Chicago is exactly what the title promises. Two young tenor players out of Chicago, Clifford Jordan and John Gilmore, walked into Van Gelder's studio in March 1957 and squared up over one of the strongest rhythm sections in hard bop: Horace Silver, Curly Russell and Art Blakey, the engine of the early Jazz Messengers. What follows is a blowing session in the best sense, standards and originals played with room to stretch and something to prove. They open on John Neely's "Status Quo", take Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce" at a canter and slow into Gigi Gryce's "Blue Lights", with two Jordan originals and a Horace Silver line filling out the rest. The two tenors are well matched but distinct, Jordan rounder and more lyrical, Gilmore harder-edged and more oblique, and Blakey drives the whole thing the way only he could.

The record carries an odd weight in hindsight. It was Clifford Jordan's first session as a leader, and he went on to a long, well-regarded career that never quite made him famous, from his late-fifties sides through to a classic 1970s date for Strata-East. For John Gilmore it was the only time he ever led a session. He spent almost forty years inside Sun Ra's Arkestra, rarely stepping out, which makes this one of the very few chances to hear one of the most admired tenor players in jazz simply blowing on standards. The two had been schoolmates in Chicago, and the record has the ease of players who already knew each other.

This copy is the 1990 Japanese mono reissue from Toshiba-EMI's Blue Note BLP 1500 Revival series, a limited edition faithful to the original, catalogue number BLP 1549, complete with OBI.