A Classic Art Blakey and Clifford Brown Blue Note: A Night At Birdland 1954

Here is a classic Blue Note session if there ever was one.

Immortalized by trumpeter Clifford Brown, who was probably Lee Morgans greatest influence.

Talk about a date you'd like to have a time machine to go back to be in the audience that night in 1954?

A real cookin' early hard bop album featuring the leader Blakey on drums, Horace Silver on Piano, and Lou Donaldson  on alto sax.

Still though, it's hard not to focus on the tragedy of Clifford Brown:

Clifford, along with Pianist Richie Powell, and Powell's wife Nancy were killed in an automobile accident on their way to a Cleveland engagement. Powell's wife was the driver. Brown's death was a major blow to jazz, as well as the development of the trumpet's use in jazz.



The aforementioned Lee Morgan, as well as Freddie Hubbard come to mind as direct descendants of Brown's trumpet sound.

The music within, is the embodiment of what I think about when considering 50's hard bop, or even a Blue Note album in general, timeless!

Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia" is a stand out track taken at a brisk pace, with fantastic interplay between Brown and Donaldson. Blakey really knew how to drive a band.

"Split Kick" and "Quick Silver" are 2 stone classic hard bop pieces, Clifford Brown is playing with a fire that really seems ahead of its time, you can plainly hear the influence on Lee Morgan on these 2 tracks.

I have found 4 Blue Note Jimmy Smith's and an original VG+ copy of Horace Silver's Horace-Scope.