Description
Release Date: 2015
Label: Enlightenment
Track List
Disc 1
- Blues
- Tortion Level
- Woody ‘N You
- Dancing in the Dark
- Parisian Thoroughfare
- Yusef
- Shaw ‘Nuff
Disc 2
- Doug’s Blues
- El Sino
- Everything Happens To Me
- Hank’s Tune
- Hank’s Other Tune
- Winterset
- Gotcha Goin’ ‘N’ Comin’
- Long Green
- Star Eyes
- Someone to Watch Over Me
Disc 3
- The Third
- Contour
- When Your Lover Has Gone
- Dig
- ‘Round Midnight
- Dewey Square
- Dupeltook
- Once More
- House Of Chan
- In Walked George
- Lover Man
Disc 4
- Little Rock Getaway
- Polka Dots and Moonbeams
- People Will Say We’re in Love
- If I Love Again
- What’s New
- Stella by Starlight
- Early Morning Blues/Now, You Don’t Know
- Early Bird
- Elgy
- Stablemates
- Steppin’ Out
- Social Call
- An Evening In Casablanca
- Satellite
Disc 5
- Star Eyes
- Orpheus
- Honeylike
- Rockaway
- Palm Court Alley
- Who’s Who
- Diffusion of Beauty
- Forty Quarters
- You Gotta Dig It To Dig It
Disc 6
- Speculation
- Over the Rainbow
- Nica’s Tempo
- Blue Concept
- Little Niles
- Sans Souci
- I Remember Clifford
- There’ll Never Be Another You
- Cattin’
- Madeline
- When I Fall In Love
- Budo
- The Jazz Message (Freedom For All)
Notes
Whilst still studying at Cass Technical High School Byrd had performed as part of Lionel Hampton’s group, before enrolling in the United States Air Force and playing in the band there. He would later go on to receive a bachelor’s degree in music from Wayne State University and a master’s from the Manhattan School of Music, joining such other famous jazz alumni as Herbie Hancock, Max Roach and Yusef Lateef. Byrd’s career as a recording artist truly began in 1955 with the release of his debut album as leader, Byrd Jazz, on the Transitions Records label. It was also around this time that Byrd joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, one of the most renowned collectives in jazz, which had already boast such famed trumpet-playing members as Clifford Brown and Kenny Dorham. He became heralded as the new leading light of the instrument; a position that came all the more profound upon Brown’s tragically premature dead in a car accident in 1956. During this period of his career, Donald Byrd appeared alongside numerous iconic musicians on some of their most highly-regarded recordings. In addition to the aforementioned Blakey, Byrd also performed with the likes of Cannonball Adderley on his 1955 album Discoveries, Hank Mobley on The Jazz Message of Hank Mobley and Horace Silver on Silver’s Blue in 1956, as well as several cuts made for a trio on John Coltrane albums in 1958. By far his most established working partner was alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce, and the two of them appeared together on no fewer than 11 albums during this time. Byrd would form his first regular quintet in 1958, which he co-led with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams until 1961. This collection features, re-mastered and in their entirety, 11 classic albums from the very roots of Donald Byrd’s career, including collaborations with such all-time greats as Gryce, Mobley, Silver and fellow trumpet player Art Farmer.
