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Leroy Williams: Time Is
by Mitchell Seidel
At 67, the precocious Leroy Williams is prepared to unleash his talents as a leader on the music world. Williams, a wonderfully melodic drummer who has been playing around New York for decades, always seems to be an important part of someone else's group. Hopefully, this album will alert folks to his talents. For his debut effort he has assembled a stirling group of people who know how to--as the old report card said--play well with others. Guitarist ...
read moreLeroy Williams
by David A. Orthmann
A journeyman who is well regarded by his peers but seldom acknowledged by critics or the listening public, Leroy Williams has played in the bands of many of the jazz giants who came to prominence during the mid-to-late twentieth century. Despite high profile work with Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Stan Getz, over thirty years in the company of Barry Harris, plus dozens of interesting recording dates, Williams’ self-effacing artistry often goes unnoticed. A smart, unobtrusive stylist in the bebop ...
read moreHank Mobley: Thinking of Home
by Richton Guy Thomas
The great jazz critic Leonard Feather once described Hank Mobley as the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone. Not a name that the novice jazz fan may recognize, Hank Mobley recorded over twenty LPs for Blue Note. Thinking of Home is his last title for Blue Note; released in 1970, this is a fitting farewell session. It features the powerful trumpet playing of Woody Shaw and the exciting pianist Cedar Walton. Hank Mobley's playing has a fire that ...
read moreHank Mobley: Thinking of Home
by Robert Gilbert
Hank Mobley’s conclusion to his long and storied association with Blue Note Records has finally made it to CD through the label’s Connoisseur series. Thinking of Home, which was recorded on the last day of July in 1970 but not made available until ten years later, shows that the tenor saxophonist was still building on his trademark hard-bop style. A three-part suite that opens the album features Mobley dabbling with long-form composition and “Justine” has him providing a stimulating framework ...
read moreBarry Harris: Magnificent!
by C. Andrew Hovan
By the time pianist Barry Harris recorded his first session as a leader in 1958, Breakin' It Up for the Argo label, Charlie Parker had already been dead for three years and the be-bop movement that he had helped usher in was already giving way to the more visceral advance of hard bop and the beginning strains of Ornette Coleman's “new thing" approach. For Harris, who was a died-in-the-wool be-bopper, this meant coming on the scene a bit too late ...
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by Derek Taylor
Despite the suspicious absence of modesty in the title of this disc this is one trio that definitely lives up to their chosen moniker. One tour through the eight tunes that these three players hew to their own devices is all that’s necessary to discover that their contention is no idle boast. Harris is the comparative veteran of the group. A consummate keyboardist, Harris rose to maturity during the bumpy birth of bebop out of swing. As a result his ...
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