Kenny Burrell had been recording for Blue Note since the spring of 1956, as a leader and as a sideman. Robert Levin, in the original notes, lists his work with Benny Goodman, Buck Clayton and Tony Scott, and has him leading his own group at the Brankers Melody Room in New York. Levin calls him the nominal leader here. This was a blowing session, the kind that works, Levin says, only when it is assembled with "thought, purpose and care."
The date was Wednesday, May 14, 1958, and it was not at Van Gelder's in Hackensack but at Manhattan Towers in New York, with Alfred Lion producing. Louis Smith, six weeks after his own Smithville, played trumpet. There were two young tenors, Tina Brooks and Junior Cook, with Sam Jones on bass and Art Blakey on drums. Duke Jordan played piano for the first five tunes; Bobby Timmons took over for the last four. Levin writes that Jones, Cook and Brooks were making their first Blue Note appearances, but the session listings have Jones on Blue Note dates since 1956 and Brooks on three earlier that spring. Nine tunes were taped, enough for two records.
Side one opens with Burrell's "Yes Baby," over 11 minutes long, with Jordan at the piano.
It is a growling, funky (in the best sense of that overworked term) blues
Robert Levin, original liner notes
"Scotch Blues" is credited to Jordan. Dom Cerulli, reviewing it in Down Beat, heard something close to a march, with a head borrowed from "The Campbells Are Coming," and Charles A. Robertson, in Audio, heard Burrell imitate bagpipes. Side two belongs to Timmons. "Autumn in New York" is Burrell with only the rhythm section; Robertson heard him develop the melody in long lines. The record ends with Ellington's "Caravan," taken up, with both tenors back in, the horns playing well, by Cerulli's account, and a spot for Blakey's drums.
The cover is a drawing by Andy Warhol, in a Reid Miles design.
Cerulli gave the record four stars in Down Beat and called it
this considerably better-than-average blowing session
Dom Cerulli, Down Beat, 1958, reprinted on The Jazz Tome
"Yes Baby" also came out on a 45, split into two parts. Of the other five tunes from the day, four waited for Blue Lights Volume 2, which the session listing dates to 1961. The last, "I Never Knew," stayed in the vault until a Japanese LP in 1980. A month later Cook was on a date with Horace Silver's quintet, and Burrell was back on Blue Note dates with Jimmy Smith that summer.
