LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

The legendary West Coast jam sessions of the late Forties and early Fifties often pitted Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon in friendly combat. This one captures the tenor saxophone colleagues in a 1950 reunion after they had not played together for more than two years. Trumpeter Clark Terry, then a member of the Count Basie sextet and Wardell, and Los Angeles alto saxophonist Sonny Criss are the other prominent jammers. Gray's sextet sides from 1951 served to introduce Art Farmer to the jazz public at large as both player and composer. His "Farmer's Market" and Hamp Hawes's "Jackie" became, like Wardell's earlier "Twisted," material for the offbeat, inventive lyrics of Annie Ross.
Track listing:Scrapple from the Apple, Move, Farmer's Market, Jackie, Bright Boy, April Skies, Sweet and Lovely, Lover Man, Blue Gray, Grayhound, A Sinner Kissed an Angel, Treadin', plus CD bonus tracks Treadin' (2 alternates), Blue Gray (2 alternates), Grayhound (2 alternates)