Booker Little And Friend Booker Little

• 1 Victory And Sorrow 05:57
• 2 Forward Flight 06:20
• 3 Looking Ahead 07:27
• 4 If I Should Lose You 05:15
• 5 Calling Softly 05:43
• 6 Booker's Blues 05:20
• 7 Matilde 05:58
• Total Runtime 42:00

Info for Booker Little And Friend

'A CD reissue of trumpeter Booker Little's Victory and Sorrow album for Bethlehem, this release adds two previously unheard alternate takes of 'Matilde' to the original program. Little's final recording before he died of uremia at the age of 23, the sextet session also features fine playing by trombonist Julian Priester, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, pianist Don Friedman, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Pete LaRoca.

However, Booker Little is generally the top soloist on the harmonically advanced hard bop date and he is in peak form throughout although he would pass away on October 5 of that year. Of his six originals, 'Molotone Music' and 'Victory and Sorrow' are most memorable even if Little's beautiful playing on a quartet version of the date's one standard, 'If I Should Lose You,' is actually the highpoint.' (Scott Yanow)

Booker Little, trumpet
George Coleman, tenor saxophone
Julian Priester, trombone
Don Friedman, piano
Reggie Workman, bass
Pete La Roca, drums

Recorded in 1961. Remastered at Frankford Wayne Mastering Labs N.Y.
Produced by Teddy Charles

Digitally remastered

Booker Little
2 April 1938, Memphis, Tennessee, USA, d. 5 October 1961, New York City, New York, USA. One of the most promising of all trumpeters in the second bebop wave of the 50s, Booker Little was equipped with a superb technique, crystal clarity of intonation and rhythmic originality. His imagination extended beyond the strict harmonic disciplines of bop however, and hinted at the vision of Ornette Coleman or Miles Davis, but an early death from uraemia consigned such promise to the realm of speculation. Little was born into a musical family, and played clarinet before taking up the trumpet at the age of 12. He was involved in Memphis jam sessions with local pianist Phineas Newborn Jnr. in his teens, but moved to Chicago in 1957 to enrol at the city’s Conservatory.

During this period Little worked with Johnny Griffin’s band, but his most significant engagement of the period was with Max Roach, replacing another gifted trumpeter, Clifford Brown. His recordings with Roach include Deeds Not Words, We Insist!, Freedom Now Suite and Percussion Bitter Sweet. Little’s originality quickly marked him out, as did his flexibility about non-bop settings, and he collaborated with Eric Dolphy on Far Cry and Live At The Five Spot (reissued as The Great Concert Of Eric Dolphy) and John Coltrane on the Africa/Brass recording. Little’s own recordings featured some outstanding players, including Roach, Dolphy (Out Front), Booker Ervin and the ‘legendary quartet’ of Scott La Faro, Roy Haynes and both Wynton Kelly and Tommy Flanagan taking turns on piano (on Booker Little, reissued as The Legendary Quartet Album on Island Records). He worked too with Donald Byrd (The Third World), Abbey Lincoln (Straight Ahead) and Frank Strozier. By the time of his death, at the age of 23, Little was balancing tonality and dissonance with an insight that suggested his influence on jazz directions in general might have been even more substantial. (Source: www.oldies.com)

Booklet for Booker Little And Friend