Benny Golson

Gone With Golson was originally released in 1959 and is saxophonist Benny Golson’s fifth album. A great example of the Hard Bop genre, the album includes 4 Golson compositions, plus “Staccato Swing” by Ray Bryant, who plays on the album, and the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves”.

One of the top hard bop contingents of the '50s and '60s, the Art Farmer and Benny Golson co-led group known as the Jazztet featured some of the best original charts and soloing of the entire era. While the group was only in existence between 1959-1962, its excellent reputation could rest on this stunning disc alone. Cut in 1960, the ten-track date features four of Golson's classic originals ("I Remember Clifford," "Blues March," "Park Avenue Petite," and "Killer Joe") and one very fetching Farmer-penned cut ("Mox Nix"). The rest of the standards-heavy mix is given the golden touch by the sextet. And what a combo this is – besides Farmer's svelte trumpet lines and Golson's frenetically vaporous tenor solos, one gets a chance to hear a young but already very accomplished McCoy Tyner, the tart and mercurial trombonist Curtis Fuller, and the streamlined rhythm tandem of Addison Farmer and Lex Humphries. An essential hard bop title.

Tune In, Turn On (subtitled To the Hippest Commercials of the Sixties) is an album by Benny Golson featuring music from television advertisements recorded in 1967 and released on the Verve label.

It is fun even if it isn't remotely the best jazz, or jazz at all. Benny Golson leads an orchestra featuring Art Farmer on trumpet and flugelhorn, Eric Gale on guitar, and Bernard Purdie at the drums, doing jazzed versions of the theme music from popular commercials. Some of it does work-Farmer and Gale have their moments-but a good deal of this recording (especially material like "The Swinger," for the Polaroid camera) comes off as jazz-muzak; it's doubtful that even Miles Davis could have done much more with the repertory here, and Golson wasn't being half as ambitious. Elliot Horne's original notes talk about Golson's credits and musical imagination, but here he even leaves the vocal choruses intact on several tracks, which ensures that listeners think of the original commercials and the products, not the music; in fact, next to this record, Verve's Count Basie Plays The Beatles is hot, swinging, and daring…

This 1998 CD reissues tenor-saxophonist Benny Golson's excellent Free album of 1962 plus seven of the ten selections from his Take A Number From 1 To 10 project of 1960. Although one wishes that both sets could have been reissued in full (the CD is just 62 minutes long), it is a joy to have Free available again. Golson's last album as a leader in which he plays in his Don Byas/Lucky Thompson style (he would soon become a fulltime arranger and, by the time he led his next playing date in 1977, Golson's sound was quite a bit different) finds him in top form.

Benny Golson - Free (1962) {Chess Reissue GRD-816 rel 1998}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 393 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 150 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 21 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1960-62, 1998 Chess / MCA / GRP | GRD-816
Jazz / Hard Bop / Mainstream Jazz / Saxophone

This 1998 CD reissues tenor-saxophonist Benny Golson's excellent Free album of 1962 plus seven of the ten selections from his Take A Number From 1 To 10 project of 1960. Although one wishes that both sets could have been reissued in full (the CD is just 62 minutes long), it is a joy to have Free available again. Golson's last album as a leader in which he plays in his Don Byas/Lucky Thompson style (he would soon become a fulltime arranger and, by the time he led his next playing date in 1977, Golson's sound was quite a bit different) finds him in top form.

The Jazztet had been in existence for two years when they recorded what would be their final LPs, Here and Now and Another Git Together. The personnel, other than the two co-leaders, flugelhornist Art Farmer and tenor-saxophonist Benny Golson, had completely changed since 1960 but the group sound was the same. The 1962 version of the Jazztet included trombonist Grachan Moncur III, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Herbie Lewis, and drummer Roy McCurdy. It is remarkable to think that this talent-filled group wasn't, for some reason, snapped up to record even more albums together. Highlights of their excellent out-of-print LP include Ray Bryant's "Tonk," "Whisper Not," "Just in Time," and Thelonious Monk's "Ruby My Dear." A classic if short-lived hard bop group.