George Wallington Quintet – Jazz For The Carriage Trade (Mono)

Besides his importance as one of the first bop pianists, a major jazz composer, and a prototypical trio player (as heard on The George Wallington Trios), for a time pianist George Wallington was also a New York combo leader and talent scout on the order of Art Blakey and Miles Davis. This 1956 session comes from the period when Wallington was musical director at the Cafe Bohemia in Greenwich Village, where the present quintet introduced then-young lions trumpeter Donald Byrd and alto saxophonist Phil Woods to jazz’s major leagues.

For this reissue, bassist Teddy Kotick and drummer Art Taylor complete the group on a program that includes three standards (“Our Delight,” “Our Love Is Here to Stay” and “What’s New”), a pair of Woods originals (“Together We Wail” and “But George”) and Frank Foster’s “Foster Dulles.” All Music Guide says “The music falls between bebop and hard bop with Woods sounding quite strong while Byrd comes across as a promising (but not yet mature) youngster. A fine example of this somewhat forgotten but talented group, easily recommended to bop collectors.”