Byrd's three originals are all choice cuts that manage to find new destinations to common locale, with "The Injuns" almost programmatic with its opening tom-toms. Less focused on standards and taking advantage of the voicings available with a three-horn front line, this 1959 classic has always been a bit neglected. And so it goes for the rest of this propitious debut.Ĭhronologically, Byrd in Hand is up next and the stakes are raised via the swapping of personnel tenor man Charlie Rouse is added and Walter Davis spells Wynton Kelly on piano, with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Art Taylor still in tow from the previous date. Keeping with the theme, "When Your Lover Has Come" is by contrast a lush ballad, the trumpeter again impressive in both tone and melodic development. Off To the Races just bristles with a crackling excitement that can be immediately sensed via the opening "Lover Come Back To Me." Taken at a brisk tempo, Byrd, Adams, and Jackie McLean through off complex phrases with relative ease, spurred on by Art Taylor's crisp ride cymbal and punctuating snare accents. This then leads us nicely to Byrd's Blue Note contract, all the while keeping Adams in the fold, and first session in December of '58. Basically, Byrd and Adams hit on their partnership sometime in early 1958, the group's first recording being the live Riverside set, 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot. Logistics aside, the next obvious question involves how Pepper Adams fits into the musical scheme of things. In a judicious packaging move, Mosaic has also opted to present the selections in original album order and segregate the sessions with larger groups on the first two discs the core quintet recordings thus appearing on discs three and four. Although all of the studio dates that paired baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams and Byrd together can be found here, the two discs of live material recorded in 1960 at the Half Note have been left out due to their relative availability elsewhere. Hitting the mark just after his Savoy and Transition sessions as a leader, the recordings collected on this four-disc set span from Byrd's 1958 maiden voyage, Off to the Races to 1967's The Creeper. And with youth on his side, Byrd was capable of delivering the goods day after day and night after night with a brassy tone and characteristic joie de vivre that distinguished him as one of the finest post-Clifford trumpeters. From the early part of the '50s on, Byrd was a busy man, appearing on scores of records for Savoy, Prestige, and Blue Note. There was a time when Donald Byrd probably spent as much time out at Rudy Van Gelder's house in Hackensack recording sessions as he did in the clubs performing for live audiences.
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