Monday, November 1, 2010

Paul Chambers & Tommy Flanagan - Motor City Scene



Collected recordings of two excellent hard bop units consisting of musicians solely from Detroit, the first led by Thad Jones and Billy Mitchell and the second by Donald Byrd and Pepper Adams that not only stand out as two of the rarest of the Bethlehem jazz recordings, but which are also two of the best records made by the teams of these venerable Detroiters. Lone Hill Jazz chose to market this CD under the names of Flanagan and Chambers which were present on both sessions. Both combos groove very nicely here and who dares not to in the presence of hard bop royalty such as Kenny Burrell, Thad Jones, Al Grey, Pepper Adams, Donald Byrd, Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers, "Hey" Lewis (a Louis Hayes alias) and Elvin Jones. The bands are very tight and the tracks are long enough that everybody gets in some good licks on the solos. 9 numbers in all: "Let's Play One", "Minor on Top", "Like Old Times", "No Refill", "Stardust", "Trio", "Philson", "Libeccio", and "Bitty Ditty". Originally released as Motor City Scene (#1-4) and Stradust (#5-9) on the Bethlehem label this CD puts the 2 sessions together for the first time. Way harder than most of the west coast sessions on Bethlehem, and two essential hard bop classics that's nigh on impossible to find on wax.



1. Let's Play One
2. Minor on Top
3. Like Old Times
4. No Refill
5. Stardust
6. Trio
7. Philson
8. Libeccio
9. Bitty Ditty

1-4 (Motor City Scene): Thad Jones (cnt, flhrn), Al Gery (tb), Billy Mitchell (ts), Tommy flanagan (p), Paul Chambers (b), Elvin Jones (d)
New York October 24 & 32, 1959

5-9 (Stardust): Donald Byrd (tp), Pepper Adams (bar), Tommy Flanagan (p), Kenny Burrell (g), Paul Chambers (b), Louis Hayes (d)
New York, 1960

9 comments:

d3lta said...

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pass: b3bop

Anonymous said...

This is a really nifty album. Thanks so much for sharing it. Love the combination of Donald Byrd and Pepper Adams.

-Davide Davidos

gnik said...

Tnx....D. My Teacher

censusloss said...

Thank you so much !

neil said...

Got an mp3 version of Motor City Scene, and the tracks correspond with tracks 5-9 of this post (credited as Stardust)!

d3lta said...

Well, tell them they're wrong, one doesn't have to be Sherlock Holmes to fathom out that Stardust is the EP album containing a track of the same name ;-)

rog said...

WONDERFUL ! Thanks... :-)

Anonymous said...

Thank you d3lta for this fine album.

Anonymous said...

То go through fire and water (through thick and thin).