Garland, Red Trio – “Groovy” – [Prestige/New Jazz]

abacus   8/20/2014   12-inch, Jazz

coming down from his Miles high and right before catching Coltrane on the upswing, one of the great Prestige sessions recorded ’56-’57 with this short lived trio, Garland as leader. clean simple melodies with a spring-loaded touch that jives and jumps along. of course Chambers chugs up and down the fretboard (What Can I Say? even scraping out a bowed solo) and Taylor snaps and slides all over the skins (with a nice cymbal scrape here and there) but Red’s attack on those keys is what really snags (boxing done some good afterall); the heart tug tenderness of Gone Again keepin groove all the way to the big block chordal blues on Willow, the original Hey Now really carrying that signature smack. sure they don’t play out much, sure it sounds nice, sure its standard, but damn this shit is Groovy!