Jackie McLean – Jackie’s Pal (Mono)

The perennially underrated Bill Hardman (1932-90) was one of the unsung trumpet heroes of the modern era. His raw sound and tense, “running” attack were featured in three separate editions of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, the first and most memorable of which found him sharing the front line with Jackie McLean and Johnny Griffin. McLean, who was already an established Prestige artist, gave Hardman the spotlight on this 1956 blowing date, recorded with a blue-ribbon rhythm section after the pair left Charles Mingus’s workshop and before they joined Blakey.