Benny Golson

Baystate was a Japanese label with a sharp ear for hard bop, and California Message is one of the better entries in their catalog - recorded when Golson was in his fifties and very much at peace with what he was. This is not an album trying to prove anything. It is a working musician at full maturity, playing his own tunes with his longtime collaborator Curtis Fuller, in the grooves he knows best.

The Golson-Fuller front line had been a going concern since the late 1950s. By 1980 they had absorbed each other's phrasing so completely that the exchanges between tenor and trombone have the quality of people finishing each other's sentences - not rushing, not showing off, just finishing. The rapport is audible in every phrase.

The Japanese market was extremely receptive to this kind of straight-ahead hard bop session in the late seventies and early eighties, at a moment when American labels had largely moved on. That commercial reality is one reason so many excellent hard bop records exist on labels like Baystate and Denon from this period - and why they tend to be collector favorites. California Message belongs in that company.

If you came to Golson through the early Riverside sessions, this is a rewarding record to find later. The harmonic language is richer, the phrasing more unhurried, the compositions more settled in their confidence. He had nothing left to prove by 1980. You can hear that freedom in every bar.

One More Mem'ry was originally released on the Japanese Baystate label in 1982 before being reissued on Timeless in 1984, and it marks one of the first recordings of Golson's full return to straight-ahead jazz after the commercial years. Curtis Fuller is back in the front line, and the combination of his trombone with Golson's tenor has a natural warmth and balance that no other pairing in Golson's catalog can quite match.

Bill Mays brings a West Coast clarity to the piano chair, and the rhythm section of Mays, Bob Magnusson, and Roy McCurdy provides a foundation that is responsive without being flashy. The title is nostalgic without being backward-looking: the "memories" in question are musical ones, and Golson creates new music in their spirit rather than simply reconstructing the past.

Golson's compositions from this period show a maturity and confidence that the best of his earlier work only hinted at. The melodies are as memorable as anything from the Jazztet book, and the writing for two horns takes full advantage of the specific qualities of the Fuller-Golson blend. An important early document of the comeback years.

Recorded in Italy for the Soul Note label, Moment to Moment is the second Jazztet reunion album, following Voices All, taped in Tokyo in April 1982, and catches the band in the particular state of creative comfort that comes from having played together long enough to stop thinking about mechanics. Five of the six tunes are Golson's (Farmer's Market is Art Farmer's), Along Came Betty among them, and the writing shows a composer fully in command of the three-horn format, creating pieces that are structurally sophisticated but that feel as natural as conversation.

Mickey Tucker's piano is warm and supportive without being passive. His accompaniment has the quality of engaged listening, responding to Farmer's flugelhorn and Golson's tenor with a harmonic imagination that keeps the music moving forward. Ray Drummond and Albert Heath provide the rhythmic foundation with the same reliability Heath had shown on Voices All the year before, where Buster Williams held the bass chair; Drummond is new to the reunion band here.

Art Farmer's flugelhorn tone is at its most burnished and warm, perfectly complementing Golson's robust tenor. Curtis Fuller adds the trombone color that defines the Jazztet's distinctive three-horn voicings. A quietly excellent album that extends the reunion series with music of genuine quality.

Subtitled "Dedicated to the Memory of Clifford Brown," this is one of the most powerful sessions in Golson's entire catalog. The front line alone is staggering: Golson flanked by both Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw, two of the most technically brilliant trumpeters of their generation, each carrying the Clifford Brown legacy in different directions. Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in December 1982, the session has the clarity and presence that Van Gelder's engineering always provided for horn-driven hard bop.

Kenny Barron's comping underneath this three-horn front line is a masterclass in making space: he knows when to feed the soloists harmonic information and when to lay out entirely. Cecil McBee's bass is a constant presence, dark-toned and melodically inventive in his walking lines. Ben Riley drives the ensemble with the kind of relaxed authority that comes from decades of experience at the highest level.

The interplay between Hubbard and Shaw is particularly riveting. Hubbard plays with the fiery confidence that defined his prime years, while Shaw's more harmonically adventurous approach provides a cooler counterpoint. Golson weaves between them with the assurance of a man who has been navigating trumpet-and-tenor front lines since the 1950s. Originally released on the Japanese Baystate label, this record deserves far wider recognition.

Originally released on the Japanese Baystate label, Nostalgia is another entry in the remarkably productive run of Jazztet reunion recordings from the early 1980s. The title is both honest and slightly misleading. Yes, the music here looks back: to the standard repertoire, to the harmonic language of the 1950s and 1960s, to the world of the acoustic small group. But Golson's relationship with that world is not nostalgic in the sentimental sense because it is not a past he is looking back at from a distance. It is a living tradition that he helped create and has never stopped inhabiting.

The Jazztet's three-horn voicings are in full effect here, with Farmer's flugelhorn providing the lyrical top voice, Fuller's trombone anchoring the lower register, and Golson's tenor carrying the melodic center. Mickey Tucker, Rufus Reid, and Billy Hart provide the rhythmic foundation with assurance, and the familiarity within the ensemble shows in the ease of the playing.

The reunion Jazztet was a genuine working band rather than an occasional nostalgia project, and records like this one show why: the playing has the relaxed authority that only comes from regular engagement. A worthy addition to the Jazztet's second-era catalog.

The pairing of Golson and Pharoah Sanders on a Coltrane tribute is inspired. Golson knew Coltrane before Coltrane became Coltrane: they were both Philadelphia tenor players of the same generation, working out their approaches side by side. Sanders knew Coltrane at the end, joining his band in 1965 and playing with him through the final free explorations. Between these two tenor voices, the full arc of Coltrane's music is represented.

Cedar Walton's piano is the ideal bridge between these two sensibilities: harmonically sophisticated enough for Golson's structured approach and rhythmically flexible enough for Sanders's more expansive moments. Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette form a rhythm section of extraordinary caliber. DeJohnette in particular plays with a responsive intelligence that adjusts to whichever tenor is leading at any given moment.

The repertoire mixes original compositions by both co-leaders with tunes associated with Coltrane, though not necessarily his most famous ones. The two tenors never get into a cutting contest, and the contrast between their approaches gives the album its drama. Originally released on the Japanese Baystate label, this record has been reissued several times and remains one of the most distinctive Coltrane tributes in the catalog.

Recorded at Clinton Studios in New York over two days in June 1987, Stardust pairs Golson with Freddie Hubbard for a quintet date of real substance. Hubbard was in prime form during this period, and the front-line contrast between his bright, incisive trumpet and Golson's warm, robust tenor gives the album an energy that the quartet dates from this era cannot quite match. The repertoire provides inspiration for some excellent hard bop solos from both men.

"Stardust" itself is one of the most recorded songs in jazz history, and Golson plays the melody with a directness and warmth that let the song be itself, developing from it through a solo that never loses sight of where it came from. Hubbard's contributions on flugelhorn are particularly beautiful on the ballad material, his tone at its most lyrical and controlled.

Mulgrew Miller, Ron Carter, and Marvin "Smitty" Smith form a rhythm section of exceptional quality. Smith's drumming is crisp and dynamic, bringing a younger generation's energy to the session without losing the swing that the material demands. Released on the Japanese Denon label and later reissued on LRC, this is one of Golson's finest late-career quintet recordings.