Altoist
Frank Morgan pays tribute to his bebop beginnings on this live set from the Village Vanguard. He matches wits with flugelhornist
Johnny Coles, pianist
Cedar Walton, bassist
Buster Williams and drummer
Billy Higgins.
Morgan takes "Come Sunday" as his ballad feature, really putting a lot of emotion into the piece, and performs five bop standards (including a version of "A Night In Tunisia" that was added to the CD version of this release) and
Jackie McLean's "Little Melonae" with the full group. The music often swings hard, and
Morgan, although initially influenced strongly by
Charlie Parker, sounds quite original, pushing at the tradition. ~ Scott Yanow