Bennie Green Quintet - 1961 - Glidin' Along (1995)

Bennie Green grew up in the generation of musicians inspired by the bebop pioneers. He developed the complex skills needed to play bop and worked in the Earl Hines band that included Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He also had roots in swing and was often compared with trombonists like Lawrence Brown, Benny Morton, Vic Dickenson, and Dickie Wells. Green melded the rapid-fire vocabulary of bebop with older styles more inclined to glides and swoops. The result was a beguiling personal dialect of the jazz language. In this stimulating 1961 date, both facets of Green's playing are evident. He is joined by tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, a contemporary also conversant in more than one idiom, and an all-star rhythm section. The result is modern mainstream music influenced by the blues and the best aspects of modern jazz and sounding remarkably fresh more than three decades later (this was written in '95, still true).

African Dream
Sweet Sucker
Glidin' Along
Green's Scene
Milkshake
Stardust
Expubidence

BENNIE GREEN - trombone
JOHNNY GRIFFIN - tenor saxophone
JUNIOR MANCE - piano
PAUL CHAMBERS or LARRY GALES (1, 4, 5) - bass
BEN RILEY - drums

Recorded at Bell Sound Studios, New York City;
March 9 and 22, 1961.
Digital remastering, 1995 - Phil De Lancie
(Fantasy Studios, Berkeley)

On the original cover it's spelled Benny Green.

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