King Curtis, an influential and greatly in-demand R&B tenorman, made relatively few jazz dates in his career. This CD has two of the best, complete albums originally called The New Scene of King Curtis and Soul Meeting; the former is also available as a separate CD but should be skipped in favor of this one.
Curtis teams up with the passionate cornetist
Nat Adderley, pianist
Wynton Kelly, either
Paul Chambers or
Sam Jones on bass and
Oliver Jackson or
Belton Evans on drums. The music is blues-based bop, with seven basic
Curtis originals and four standards. Highly recommended, this set serves as proof that
King Curtis could have been a viable jazz player. ~ Scott Yanow