Search - Booker Ervin :: In Between

A winner from Booker

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 12/30/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This title was part of the first connossoir super bit mapping, limited edition, then it went out of print and now it is again available as part of the Japanese Blue Note series. I have the first connossoir edition cd. The first connossoir series (you can recognize those cds because they had the writing "connossoir cd series" in white over purple instead of white over blue and they had not the awful copy controlled technology) was a tremendous reissues series. Each time I see a cd belonging to these old releases I immediatly buy it because I know basing my judgment on the other cds I have from the series, that Blue Note guys at that time searched with great attention in their catalogue to find true gems to reissue. This case is no exception because this album from Booker Ervin is surely another winner. It is an album recorded at Rudy Van Gelder studio January the 12th 1968. The tunes are all Boker's originals. The music is hard bop, very modal in some points but always very muscular, highly energetic. They didn't save energies here, you can bet. You know Booker's style but for the newcomers I'd say it's an hard, muscular, adrenalinic tenor style rooted in the Coltrane idiom and strongly rooted to the blues. Richard Williams at the trumpet is the other horn here and complement very well Booker's style. The other guys are Bobby Few (piano), Cevera Jefries (bass), Lennie McBrowne (drums). Williams plays sixties hard bop trumpet, with some screams here and there, runs and fragmented lines, bu he can play tonally over the changes very well as in "Mour". The program is as I told you before based on hard bop vehicles penned by Booker. First two tune are modal speeders. "Mour" has more changes (chromatic at some points) taken at medium up tempo. "Sweet Pea" is another hard bop medium up tempo tune with changes. With "Largo" we're in the ballad mood, it has a sort of "Blue in green" atmosphere. The last tune is "Tyra" is a medium tempo tune, it is intriguing, it has a sort of mysterious feeling. Most important releases from Booker's are the Prestige books (Blues, Space, Freedom, Song) but this one surely is a strong album in its own right, highly enjoyable. Buy it with confidence, five stars no problem."