Serenata

The Jazztet: Benny Golson (tenor sax), Art Farmer (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), McCoy Tyner (piano), Addison Farmer (bass) and Lex Humphries (drums). From the album Meet the Jazztet (1960).

This is the first album recorded by the Jazztet, a group co-led by Art Farmer and Benny Golson and one of the most important of the hard bop style, although it only existed from 1959 to 1962. The album had good sales and a single that came out of it with the themes “Killer Joe” and “Mox Nix” sold more than 40,000 copies. You can find everything in it: good standard arrangements, new compositions and fantastic solos. The band’s components couldn’t be better: Golson with his frantically vaporous tenor saxophone solos, Farmer with his slender trumpet lines, a young but experienced McCoy Tyner, trombonist Curtis Fuller with his fluid and attractive sound, and the stylized rhythm tandem of Addison Farmer and Lex Humphries.

Source

After a short introduction, the theme is interpreted with the power that represents three wind instruments playing at the same time. After the exposition, the group doubles the tempo and we hear Golson play at an amazing speed with Farmer and Fuller making a sound mattress underneath. His solo is a continuous discourse without leaving a single silence between notes. Then Farmer replaces him with a speech that starts out a little calmer, but soon warms up and begins to run as a Formula 1. After a Humphries drumroll, the band returns to the previous speed and re-exposes the theme.

Source

© Argo Records