This is one of the odder releases of the 1980s. For the first and only times, trumpeter
Chet Baker and tenor saxophonist
Archie Shepp teamed up for a pair of concerts in a quintet which also included pianist Horace Parlan, bassist
Herman Wright and drummer
Clifford Jarvis. The fact that
Shepp is an emotional avant-gardist and
Baker a cool-toned lyrical trumpeter and that both have radically different singing styles (they take a vocal apiece) results in the obvious: these two individualists do not blend together very well. Other than
Shepp's "Dedication to Bessie Smith's Blues," the repertoire is all standards.
Baker plays pretty, while
Shepp sounds sloppy and heavy. This CD is definitely a historical curiosity, but does not need to be listened to more than once.