Mal Waldron with Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin - The Quest

A gem from the 1961 Dolphy cannon, this one has often been released under Dolphy's name but in fact highlights the compositional skills of pianist Mal Waldron. Waldron was an old school bopper who'd backed Billie Holiday and worked with artists like John Coltrane (Waldron wrote the song "Soul Eyes" which Coltrane later turned into a classic) on a decent series of hard-bop Prestige dates. In the early sixties Waldron changed with the currents and recorded extensively with Eric Dolphy (and later with Mingus).

This album finds Waldron and Dolphy with a great supporting cast including fellow Mingus alumnus Booker Ervin on tenor sax, Ron Carter on cello (echoing his work on Dolphy's "Out There" album), Joe Benjamin on bass and Charlie Persip on drums. Two of these songs, "Status Seeking" and "Fire Waltz" would become part of the repertoire when Waldron toured with Dolphy and Booker Little soon after these recordings, resulting in the legendary Five Spot shows captured by New Jazz. A good album that fits nicely with the sixty-some odd other recordings (I'm not kidding on that number, either) Dolphy made in 61 with the likes of Mingus, Coltrane, Oliver Nelson, Ron Carter, Booker Little, Max Roach, and Ornette Coleman (as well as a few solo albums and a couple other artists I'm forgetting). Enjoy.

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Booker Ervin - Structurally Sound (1966)

The double meaning of the word "sound" in this title references both the phenomenon of sound and, particularly, Booker Ervin's durability. When Ervin convened this quintet in December 1966, he'd had a string of critically acclaimed (and extraordinarily creative) albums on Prestige (case in point: The Space Book). But real success, even by jazz standards, didn't propel Ervin to the heights where he belonged. His tenor saxophone, deeply entwined with the Texas tradition, had breadth that hit with the force of Coltrane and a tonal control that allowed him to aerate his playing beautifully. Here he does just this on both quick-paced tunes, such as trumpeter Charles Tolliver's "Franess," and on the band's evocative take on Oliver Nelson's "Stolen Moments." A young John Hicks lays down the piano in colorfully bright hues, and Tolliver and Ervin are off. They play riveting hard bop that should be part of any jazz collection. After all, Ervin was one of Mingus's faves, and we know what discerning tastes Charles had.

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