Benny Golson

Golson and Curtis Fuller reunited for this Dreyfus date, recorded at Studios Ferber in Paris over three days in November 1991. The result is a genuine quintet record that brings back the two-horn front line of tenor and trombone that had always been Golson's most natural ensemble format. Six Golson originals plus Fuller's "A La Mode" and Brubeck's "In Your Own Sweet Way" make up the program, showcasing Golson's compositional voice at its most settled and confident. French trumpeter Jean-Loup Longnon joins for a single track, expanding the front line to three horns.

Kevin Hays was in his mid-twenties at the time of this session, but his piano work shows a maturity beyond his years: harmonically rich, responsive to the soloists, and with a rhythmic feel that drives without pushing. James Genus on bass and Tony Reedus on drums complete a rhythm section that is tight, swinging, and alert to every shift in the music's direction. The younger rhythm section gives the album a different energy from the Jazztet reunion records.

Golson's tone at sixty-two is full and warm, with a quality of patient authority that the earlier recordings, for all their brilliance, could not have had. Fuller sounds equally comfortable, his trombone voice as distinctive and personal as it was in the Jazztet days. A rewarding return to form for both men.

Recorded in a single evening in Italy in February 1989 and released on Dreyfus two years later, this is one of the best live documents of Golson's late-career working band. The quartet with Mulgrew Miller, Peter Washington, and Tony Reedus had been touring together and the cohesion is immediately audible: the rhythm section breathes as a unit, and Golson plays with a freedom that only comes from absolute trust in the musicians behind him.

Washington's bass is prominent in the mix and his walking lines underneath Golson's solos are models of melodic accompaniment, never just timekeeping. Reedus drives the tempos with a controlled energy that gives the up-tempo pieces real momentum without ever pushing the soloist. Miller's comping is as inventive as ever, dropping unexpected harmonic substitutions that Golson picks up and runs with.

The extended versions of "Killer Joe" and "I Remember Clifford" are the highlights, each stretching well beyond what a studio date would allow. The Italian audience is attentive and responsive, and the feeling of communication between the band and the room adds something real to the music. A valuable document of this quartet at the height of its powers.

Miles Davis died in September 1991, and Golson's tribute the following year is a genuinely personal document. The two men had come up in the same Philadelphia hard bop world, had overlapped at Prestige Records in the late 1950s, and shared mutual respect across decades of separate careers. Recorded at Clinton Studios in New York in October 1992 and originally released on the Japanese Alfa Jazz label, this is not a formal tribute in the sense of covering Davis's most famous recordings: it is a more intimate thing, a close friend playing music that meant something to him in honor of someone who was gone.

The sextet format gives the tribute real weight. Eddie Henderson's trumpet carries the inevitable echoes of Miles without attempting imitation, Curtis Fuller adds the trombone voice that was always at the heart of Golson's best ensemble writing, and Mulgrew Miller's piano provides the harmonic foundation with characteristic warmth. Ray Drummond and Tony Reedus complete a rhythm section that was becoming Golson's most reliable working unit in this period.

Golson's tone on the slower, more reflective material here reaches depths of warmth that remind you how well he understood the ballad tradition that Davis also inhabited. The album does not try to recreate Miles's sound or approach; it simply reflects on the music they both cared about. A moving and understated tribute from the working sextet that defined Golson's early 1990s output.

A live album that captures Golson in the mid-1990s with a younger rhythm section. Kevin Hays, Dwayne Burno, and Carl Allen were part of a new generation of straight-ahead players who had absorbed the hard bop tradition thoroughly, and their interplay with Golson has a different energy than the established rhythm sections of his earlier records: more alert, more eager to prove themselves, and with a rhythmic drive that keeps Golson on his toes.

The live setting suits Golson. He was always a performer who fed off the energy of an audience, and the extended solo space that a club date provides allows him to develop ideas at length in a way that studio recordings sometimes curtail. Carl Allen's drumming is crisp and responsive, Burno's bass walks with genuine authority, and Hays brings a pianistic sophistication that belies his youth on this date.

The original compositions sit alongside reworkings of Golson standards, and the live context gives everything a sense of occasion that serves the music well. Golson at sixty-seven plays with the accumulated authority of four decades but with an energy that would be impressive in a player half his age. A thoroughly enjoyable live document.

Recorded live at Ronnie Scott's in 1965 and not released until 1997, this is a document from Golson's period in Europe, when he was spending extended time on the continent working with local rhythm sections and enjoying the receptive audiences that British and European jazz clubs offered American musicians. The Stan Tracey trio provides solid, swinging accompaniment, and the club atmosphere is intimate and focused.

The repertoire is standards-heavy, which suits the live context: these are tunes that any competent rhythm section can follow, and the familiarity of the material frees Golson to stretch out and play with the kind of extended invention that live performance allows. The title track swings hard, and Golson's solo builds with the patient logic that characterizes his best improvising.

The sound quality is better than you might expect from a 1965 club recording, and the audience presence adds warmth without overwhelming the music. As a historical document of Golson in his mid-thirties, playing with the full command of his instrument but still audibly hungry, this is a valuable addition to the discography that Jazz House Records did well to rescue from the archives.

Released on the Japanese Video Arts label, Brown Immortal is Golson's most sustained engagement with the memory of Clifford Brown since he wrote "I Remember Clifford" in 1956. The title track is an original dedicated to Brown, and the program mixes Brown-associated repertoire with Golson originals and standards from the hard bop tradition that Brown helped define. John Swana's trumpet is the obvious stand-in for Brown's voice, and he plays with warmth and precision throughout.

The sextet format gives Golson room to write for the front line in ways a quartet cannot accommodate. Ron Blake's second tenor adds textural richness, and the three-horn passages are voiced with the care of a composer who has been arranging for ensembles since the late 1950s. Tito Puente and Carlos "Patato" Valdés guest on percussion for the Latin-flavored title track, adding rhythmic firepower to the tribute. Mike LeDonne's piano is hard-swinging and rhythmically certain, Peter Washington's bass anchors everything, and Joe Farnsworth drives the band with crisp, musical drumming.

The tracks include "Five Spot After Dark," "Dear Old Stockholm," and "Horizon Ahead," alongside the title piece. Each is given a thoughtful arrangement and generous solo space. Originally a Japan-only release, Brown Immortal remains one of the most complete and emotionally satisfying records of Golson's late career, a fitting memorial from the man who knew Brown best.

The concept is irresistible: Golson, the elder statesman, sharing the front line with three other tenor players from different generations and stylistic backgrounds. Branford Marsalis brings his wide-ranging harmonic vocabulary, James Carter brings fire and raw energy, and Harold Ashby brings the deep Ellingtonian warmth of his years in the Duke's band. The four tenors rotate through the tracks in different combinations, and the contrast between their approaches is the album's engine.

Geoff Keezer, Dwayne Burno, and Joe Farnsworth form a rhythm section young enough to keep up with Carter's intensity and experienced enough to cushion Ashby's more lyrical statements. Keezer in particular is excellent throughout, adjusting his accompaniment to suit whichever tenor is in the spotlight without ever sounding like he is merely reacting.

The Grammy-nominated track with Marsalis is the obvious highlight, but the deeper pleasures are in the less expected pairings. Carter and Ashby together, for instance, produce a contrast between generational aesthetics that is genuinely illuminating. Originally released in Japan on Keystone before the Arkadia edition brought it to a wider audience.

The companion album to Brown Immortal, recorded with the same working group and released the following year on Milestone. Where Brown Immortal was structured around the title dedication, Remembering Clifford casts a wider net through the hard bop tradition that Brown helped create. John Swana again takes the trumpet chair, his warm tone well suited to the material, and Ron Blake's second tenor adds depth to the ensemble passages.

The surprise is the presence of Tito Puente and Carlos "Patato" Valdes on percussion. Golson had always been drawn to Latin rhythms, going back to his early Jazztet arrangements, and the addition of Puente's timbales and Patato's congas on several tracks gives the rhythm section a propulsive energy that transforms familiar material. Mike LeDonne, Peter Washington, and Joe Farnsworth are the same tight unit from Brown Immortal, and they integrate the percussion additions seamlessly.

The repertoire mixes Golson originals with standards and Brown-associated tunes, and the variety of approaches across the program keeps the album from feeling like a single-mood exercise. The ballad readings are tender, the up-tempo pieces cook, and the Latin-flavored tracks provide a welcome change of texture. A worthy companion to Brown Immortal from one of the most productive periods in Golson's late career.

This is Golson's most ambitious late-career project: a multi-session anthology assembled from recordings made between 1996 and 2000 for Arkadia Jazz. The album moves between several different configurations. Some tracks feature the Jazztet reunion front line of Art Farmer, Curtis Fuller, and Golson with a rhythm section anchored by Mulgrew Miller and Ron Carter. Others pair Golson with Geoff Keezer, Dwayne Burno, and Joe Farnsworth in a leaner quartet format.

The most striking departures are the tracks with Shirley Horn backed by a chamber ensemble of twelve celli, two French horns, oboe, and flute, and a solo classical piano performance by Lara Downes on Golson's "On Gossamer Wings." These are not afterthoughts or novelty tracks: they represent Golson's genuine ambition to place his compositions in contexts beyond the standard jazz format.

The variety of approaches means the album lacks the unity of a single-session date, but the trade-off is worth it: you hear Golson's compositional range more fully here than on any other single record in the catalog. The Jazztet tracks with Art Farmer are particularly poignant, as Farmer was nearing the end of his own career. A generous and wide-ranging document from a musician who refused to be confined to a single format.

Recorded at Stile Libero Studio in Pastrengo, Italy, with an Italian rhythm section, this is one of several records Golson made during his regular European touring. Massimo Farao is a pianist rooted in the Oscar Peterson tradition: technically commanding, harmonically generous, and completely at home in the swing idiom. Bobby Durham, the veteran American drummer who had spent years accompanying Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson, provides the rhythmic foundation.

The standards-heavy repertoire includes "Take the 'A' Train," the title track, and several ballads that show Golson at his most lyrical. The Italian studio has a warm, natural acoustic that flatters the tenor's tone, and the recording captures the quartet in a relaxed, after-hours mood. Aldo Zunino's bass is deep-toned and steady, providing the harmonic ground that Farao and Golson build on.

There is an appealing informality to this session that you do not always get on American studio dates. Golson sounds completely comfortable with these musicians, and the interplay suggests either rehearsal or the kind of instant rapport that experienced jazz players sometimes achieve. A modest but thoroughly enjoyable record from a touring musician working with a sympathetic local rhythm section.

Named as a homage to Steven Spielberg's 2004 film "The Terminal," in which Golson made a cameo appearance, Terminal 1 is more than a novelty tie-in. The quintet format with Eddie Henderson on trumpet gives Golson a front-line partner for the first time since the Jazztet reunion sessions, and Henderson's flugelhorn in particular blends beautifully with Golson's tenor on the ballads.

The rhythm section of LeDonne, Williams, and Allen had become Golson's default working unit by 2004, and the rapport among them is immediately audible. LeDonne's piano is harder-swinging than many of Golson's earlier accompanists, with a left hand that really digs in. Williams remains one of the most authoritative bass players in jazz, and Allen's drumming fits the Golson context naturally.

The compositions include some of the finest new Golson writing of the decade: melodies with the same inevitably memorable quality as his classics from fifty years earlier. That a composer at seventy-five was still writing at this level is one of the great facts of the Golson story. Henderson's presence throughout lifts the album above what a quartet-only date might have achieved, and the Concord production values are excellent. A deeply satisfying late-career record.

The title announces a new chapter. Rather than reuniting the Jazztet, Golson built a fresh sextet around the musicians who had become his core working band in the 2000s: Eddie Henderson on trumpet, Steve Davis on trombone, and the LeDonne-Williams-Allen rhythm section. Recorded in New Jersey in August 2008, the album presents both new Golson compositions and reworkings of his classics, all arranged for the three-horn front line he had always favored.

Henderson's trumpet and Davis's trombone give Golson's arrangements a different color from the Farmer-Fuller combination. Henderson brings a more modern harmonic sensibility, while Davis's trombone has a richness that fills the ensemble from below. The rhythm section provides the hard-swinging foundation that Golson's music demands, with LeDonne's piano particularly authoritative throughout.

The surprise guest is Al Jarreau, who contributes vocals on one track with a warmth that complements the ensemble sound. At seventy-nine, Golson's compositional skills remained sharp, and the new pieces on this album stand alongside the classics without apology. A strong late-career statement that proved Golson could build a new working band with the same musical intelligence he had brought to every ensemble since the original Jazztet.

The title is the most defiant possible statement of intent for a musician recording at eighty-five. Not "looking back" or "in retrospect" but "horizon ahead": there is more music to make, more ideas to follow, more of this life available. Golson had been playing professionally for six decades by this point and showed no signs of wanting to stop, and the music on this album supports that refusal to slow down with playing of remarkable quality.

The longtime quartet with LeDonne, Williams, and Allen had reached the kind of collective understanding that only comes from years of playing together in many contexts, and this final studio document of that working unit captures them at a level of musical integration that is genuinely moving to hear. They finish each other's phrases and leave each other's space, the way musicians only do when they have really listened to each other long enough.

New compositions sit alongside familiar Golson originals, and the new pieces show a composer who has not settled for living on past achievement. The melodies are immediate and carefully constructed, the harmonies are sophisticated without being exclusionary, and the rhythmic character is as direct and swinging as anything he has made in the previous six decades. A genuinely extraordinary record from a genuinely extraordinary career.

The Jamey Aebersold play-along series occupies a unique place in jazz education: professional rhythm section recordings designed for musicians to practice over, with the melody instrument left out so the student can take the role of the soloist. Golson's volume in the series is both a document of his compositional legacy and a practical guide to his musical world, with recordings of his best-known tunes played by professional musicians who know exactly how these pieces should sound.

The Aebersold series chose Golson for the series because his compositions represent some of the most improvisation-friendly in the hard bop canon. "Whisper Not," "Killer Joe," "Stablemates," "I Remember Clifford," and the other pieces in his catalog have just the right combination of strong melodic identity and harmonic richness to reward both beginning improvisers and experienced players revisiting the material.

This is not a typical listening record but it is worth owning and worth acknowledging: it represents the educational dimension of Golson's influence, his role not just as a performer and composer but as a teacher of the tradition through the music he created. His compositions have helped train generations of jazz musicians who may not even know his name as a performer. That is a remarkable kind of legacy.

The title says everything. Culture Factory's 2024 reissue of this late-period Golson set carries the kind of confidence you only get from someone who has been playing jazz for seventy years and has absolutely no patience left for any music that isn't. Just jazz. That's the whole statement and the whole program.

By the time this was recorded, Golson was one of the last surviving masters of the hard bop era - a direct link to the Riverside sessions, the Jazztet, the years when he was writing tunes for Coltrane and Art Blakey and everyone else who needed a great melody. The weight of that history doesn't slow him down. It seems to loosen him up.

The ballads are where this record stands tallest. Golson's tone on slow tunes - that wide, slightly husky sound he developed in the fifties and never lost - has a quality on these tracks that is almost conversational. He plays the melody straight before he does anything else with it, which is a practice that has disappeared from much of contemporary jazz but that makes enormous emotional sense once you hear it done right.

This is not a record that is going to convert anyone who doesn't already love this music. But for anyone who does, it is a quiet pleasure - a master at work, doing what he has always done best, with no fuss and no apologies. The title is the review.