Coltrane does not do the old Dexter Gordon/Leo Parker duet number, "Settin' the Pace," in this set. The overall title merely refers to his preeminence in the jazz world at the time the recording was released in the early Sixties.
Recorded in 1958, this session comes from a time when Trane had already played in the Miles Davis quintet and the Thelonious Monk quartet, and was frequenting Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio in recording situations backed by the Red Garland trio. This threesome–Garland, Paul Chambers, and Arthur Taylor–was a Prestige entity on its own, but had already released such albums with Coltrane as Traneing In and Soultrane. Settin' the Pace, with its heady combination of seldom-done pop material and Jackie McLean's intriguing "Little Melonae," continued the excellent quartet series at a time when Trane was making jazz history at the head of yet another powerful foursome.
This was a forerunner of the Miles Davis Quintet as it was his first session with Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones. Up to then his Prestige dates had been of the "all star" variety. (Oscar Pettiford fills that bill here.) By the fall, John Coltrane and Paul Chambers would come aboard to help form the first of a continuum of great Davis working groups. On "A Night in Tunisia" Philly Joe used special sticks with little cymbals riveted to the shaft. Recorded June 7, 1955 at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ. With Red Garland, Oscar Pettiford, Philly Joe Jones.
Posterity remembers Oliver Nelson (1932-1975) primarily as an arranger/conductor. When he first began to attract attention with a series of albums for Prestige and its subsidiaries, however, Nelson was hailed as a versatile leader of small groups and a composer/instrumentalist who could refresh the music’s traditional verities while also looking ahead. There is no better showcase for these skills among his initial sessions than Screamin’ the Blues, a rousing set of funky modernism interpreted by a sextet of players who shared Nelson’s allegiance to both virtuosity and vision.
Not to be confused with At the Jazz Corner of the World, the Messengers' 1959 Birdland recording (which featured tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley), Meet was recorded the following year at the band's favored venue with the still-rawboned tenorist Wayne Shorter joining trumpeter Lee Morgan on an explosive front line. Originally released in separate volumes but here presented as a two-CD set, the album maintains the Messengers' ties to the underappreciated Mobley via three originals that he never recorded himself. The emphasis is less on catchy tunes than full-bore blowing, with the rhythm section of Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt, and the unbeatable Blakey plumbing their bag of hard-bop tricks to push the music through the grooves.