A Blowin' Session
is one of the greatest hard bop jam sessions ever recorded; it is filled with infectious passion and camaraderie. It's also the only time tenor saxophonists
Johnny Griffin
and
John Coltrane
would play together on record. Initially
Coltrane
wasn't scheduled to be on this date, but
Griffin
saw him on his way to
Rudy Van Gelder
's studio and asked him to join the remaining musicians, third tenor
Hank Mobley
, trumpeter
Lee Morgan
, pianist
Wynton Kelly
, bassist
Paul Chambers
, and drummer
Art Blakey
. These musicians were all associates within the same East Coast hard bop scene of the time; they came from
the Jazz Messengers
Miles Davis
' quintet, and many had played with
Dizzy Gillespie
's big band. Showcased on this April 8, 1957, session are two standards,
"The Way You Look Tonight"
"All the Things You Are,"
along with two original
compositions,
"Ball Bearing"
"Smoke Stack."
(An added bonus on the 1999
remastered edition is an alternate take of
) Of special note is
"The Way You Look Tonight,"
featuring the three tenors trading off with complexity and speed that is still astonishing, especially in the case of
(dubbed the world's fastest saxophonist) and
's ability to navigate complex chord changes over a fast tempo. ~ Al Campbell