Essential Young Lions

As Detroiters like Kenny Burrell, Pepper Adams, and Tommy Flanagan were migrating to New York in the mid-'50s in a modern jazz takeover, Pittsburgh drummer Kenny Clarke made known his intentions to support these new Young Lions by being their drummer of choice. This album is nearly the same as the equally excellent and highly recommended effort Kenny Clarke Meets the Detroit Jazzmen, save one extra selection. Burrell is the ostensible leader on this six-track set, but the members of this finely honed quintet (including dual Detroit/Pittsburgh claimant citizen bassist Paul Chambers) can all take equal roles, and eventually would as frontmen in their own right…

Ray Vega pays tribute to 13 fellow trumpeters on Boperation, offering Latin jazz interpretations of songs that were, in most cases, written by the trumpeters themselves. All of the trumpeters that Vega salutes became well known after World War II and made their mark playing bop, cool, or post-bop; the Puerto Rican New Yorker doesn't embrace anything by pre-bop icons like Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Harry James, but, rather, turns his attention to the works of post-swing improvisers ranging from Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, and the Fats Navarro/Howard McGhee team to Clifford Brown and his admirers, including Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw, and Donald Byrd…