up With Donald Byrd

Grant Green & Donald Byrd - His Majesty King Funk & Up With Donald Byrd (1995) {Verve 559 621-2 rec 1964-1965}
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© 1964-65, 1995 Verve / PolyGram | 559 621-2 | Jazz: The Verve Collection Series
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Soul Jazz / Guitar / Trumpet

2 of the grooviest Verve 60s jazz funk sessions on one CD! Grant Green's His Majesty King Funk is a tight quintet session with Larry Young on organ and Harold Vick on tenor, and it grooves with a tightness that matches Green's best Blue Note sessions. The album is reissued here with the tracks in their full versions, and titles include "The Selma March", "Daddy Grapes", and "The Cantaloupe Woman". The record is paired with Donald Byrd's groovy Up album, a record that has his funky trumpet playing with a larger group arranged by Herbie Hancock, that also features some added vocal backing at times. The record has a very tasty version of "Cantaloupe Island", plus the cuts "Blind Man, Blind Man", "Bossa", and "Boom, Boom". Nice groovy 60's material, with 14 cuts in all!

Just a few weeks before his death, Eric Dolphy performed a concert at the Le Chat Qui Péche club in Paris on June 11, 1964, broadcast on French radio station France Musique, with a septet including fellow jazz luminary Donald Byrd on trumpet. The six tracks on this disc include selections from his albums Outward Bound (1960), Out There (1961), and Far Cry (1962), as well as a version of John Coltrane's "Naima". Personnel: Eric Dolphy - alto saxophone, bass, clarinet, flute; Donald Byrd - trumpet; Nathan Davis - tenor saxophone; Jack Diéval - piano; Jacques Hess - bass; Franco Manzecchi - drums; Jacky Bambou - congas. The entire broadcast is presented here, digitally remastered, with background liners.

From the crackling opening notes of "Lover Come Back to Me," it's clear that Off to the Races is one of Donald Byrd's most invigorating sessions of the late '50s. Working with a stellar supporting band - Jackie McLean (alto sax), Wynton Kelly (piano), Pepper Adams (bari sax), Sam Jones (bass), Art Taylor (drums) - Byrd turns in one of his strongest recordings of the era. Throughout the album, Byrd switches between hard bop, ballads, laid-back blues, and soul-jazz. Two of the numbers are standards, one is a cover, and three are Byrd originals, but what matters is the playing. Over the course of the album, Byrd proves he has matured greatly as a soloist, capable of sweet, melodic solos on the slower numbers and blistering runs of notes on the faster songs…

AVID Jazz presents the latest release in our Four Classic Album series with a second re-mastered 2CD release from Donald Byrd, complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details.

By the time of this fourth Blue Note album by trumpeter Donald Byrd, it became clear that his playing was becoming stronger with the passing of time. Byrd in Flight features separate studio sessions from January and July of 1960 with constants Duke Pearson on piano and drummer Lex Humphries. Bassists Doug Watkins and Reggie Workman split duties six tracks to three, as do tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley and alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, making for some interesting sonic combinations, although Byrd is the dominant voice. Several of these selections are penned by Byrd, but it is pianist Pearson who contributes four of the most potent compositions on Byrd in Flight, supplying the wings for these quintet recordings to take off…

One of his last efforts with the Mizell production team was definitely not his most critically acclaimed, but Caricatures continued Byrd's commercial winning streak that started years previous with 1969's Kofi and such '70s Blue Note classics as Places and Spaces, Black Byrd, and Street Lady. His last release for the label was no exception to the formula set forth from the previously mentioned albums. One of Caricatures strongest features is the level of musicianship from start to finish. Byrd recruited some of the top '70s soul-jazz musicians, such as Gary Bartz, Alphonse Mouzon, David T Walker, and future '80s R&B hitmaker Patrice Rushen, to help complement the musicianship laid down by Byrd and the Mizell brothers…

This release presents the complete October 22, 1958 concert by the Donald Byrd Quintet with Bobby Jaspar, performed at the famous Olympia Theatre. It contains both volumes of Byrd in Paris in their entirety, plus a rare version of “More of the Same” that is from the same performance but was only previously available on a long out of print compilation. Further tunes by the same group recorded at a Paris club a few days later (including three versions of songs that were also performed at the Olympia) have been added as a bonus.

The second of two sets that document a Paris concert by trumpeter Donald Byrd, Parisian Thoroughfare features Bobby Jaspar on tenor and flute, pianist Walter Davis, Jr., bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Art Taylor. Other than Byrd's "At This Time" and Davis' "Formidable," the quintet sticks to bop standards, many of which are quite concise and clock in at around three minutes. Longer versions of the title track (a high point) and "52nd Street Theme" are exceptions. This spirited, bop-oriented music is the equal of the first volume.

Trumpeter Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams worked together on several recordings between 1958 and 1961, and The Cat Walk (released on LP in 1962) is among the best. A quintet setting, with pianist Duke Pearson (another longtime Byrd collaborator), bassist Laymon Jackson, and a lively Philly Joe Jones on drums joining the front line of Byrd and Adams, the sessions for The Cat Walk benefited from the writing and arrangement skills of Pearson, who contributes three compositions here, the impressive opener "Say You're Mine," "Duke's Mixture," and "Hello Bright Sunflower," which borrows its melodic structure from the opening bars of "Lullaby of Broadway" and features Byrd using a muted trumpet…

Trumpeter Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams worked together on several recordings between 1958 and 1961, and The Cat Walk (released on LP in 1962) is among the best. A quintet setting, with pianist Duke Pearson (another longtime Byrd collaborator), bassist Laymon Jackson, and a lively Philly Joe Jones on drums joining the front line of Byrd and Adams, the sessions for The Cat Walk benefited from the writing and arrangement skills of Pearson, who contributes three compositions here, the impressive opener "Say You're Mine," "Duke's Mixture," and "Hello Bright Sunflower," which borrows its melodic structure from the opening bars of "Lullaby of Broadway" and features Byrd using a muted trumpet…