Red Mitchell - Presenting Red Mitchell (1957)

Tracklist

1.Scrapple From The Apple 5:27
2.Rainy Night 5:20
3.I Thought Of You 5:17
4.Out Of The Blue 6:15
5.Paul`s Pal 6:55
6.Sandu 5:31
7.Cheek To Cheek 8:06
Red Mitchell - Presenting Red Mitchell (1957)

personnel

Bass – Red Mitchell
Drums – Billy Higgins
Flute – James Clay
Piano – Lorraine Geller

Bassist Red Mitchell, who had led two fairly obscure sessions for Bethlehem in 1955, came up with a gem on his lone Contemporary set as a leader (which has been reissued as this CD). Based in Los Angeles at the time, Mitchell utilized pianist Lorraine Geller and two up-and-coming players: James Clay (who splits his time between tenor and flute) and, in one of his first recording sessions, drummer Billy Higgins. The quartet performs then-recent tunes by Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown ("Sandu"), a pair of Mitchell originals, "Scrapple From the Apple" and "Cheek to Cheek." Despite Higgins' and (to a lesser extent) Clay's connections with Ornette Coleman, the music is strictly high-quality modern mainstream bop of the era. Easily recommended to collectors of straight-ahead jazz.~Scott Yanow