Jazz-funk/rhythm and blues: “Black Byrd”

From 1956 to 1958 Donald Byrd was a studio musician for Prestige Records, where he matched with John Coltrane on four albums, and for which he released 2 Trumpets (1957) with trumpeter Art Farmer and The Young Bloods (1957) with alto saxophonist Phil Woods. In 1957 they were followed by Modern Jazz Perspective and Jazz Lab with the Jazz Laboratory Quintet he founded with alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce for the Columbia label, Byrd Blows on Beacon Hill again for Transition and Jazz Eyes with alto saxophonist John Jenkins once more for Savoy.

In 1958 At Newport went on sale, whose second face features three themes by the Jazz Laboratory Quintet, and Jazz Lab by the same band recorded by Jubilee Records. That same year Byrd formed a quintet with Belgian tenor saxophonist and flutist Bobby Jaspar, with whom he toured Europe, registering a concert in Paris in Parisian Thoroughfare (1958). On his return to the United States he organized another quintet with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams in which different musicians participated over time. Also in 1958 10 to 4 at the 5 Spot appeared in a performance both offered with their quintet in the Five Spot Café club is collected.

In addition, Byrd signed with the Blue Note label, with which he maintained a long professional relationship until the mid-1970s. His first work for them was Off to the Races (1959) with Adams and the collaboration of the accomplished alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, in which ballads, blues, hard bop and soul jazz are heard, and in which Byrd brings three numbers. He demonstrates his maturity as a soloist by firing rapid bursts of notes on fast themes and making sweet and melodic solos on slow ones. Then he presented Byrd in Hand (1959) with Adams and the contribution of tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, who accompanied the genius Thelonious Monk for more than a decade. In this album we find three new Byrd tunes and creative and energetic solos in the hard bop language.