A Blowin' Session

Description

A Blowin' Session is one of the greatest hard bop jam sessions ever recorded, brimming with infectious passion and camaraderie. It also marked the only time tenor saxophonists Johnny Griffin and John Coltrane played together on a record. Originally, Coltrane was not scheduled for the date, but Griffin spotted him on his way to Rudy Van Gelder's studio and asked him to join the other musicians: third tenor Hank Mobley, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Art Blakey. These musicians were all associated with the same East Coast hard bop scene of the era, having come from the Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis's quintet, and many had played with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. This April 8, 1957, session features two standards, "The Way You Look Tonight" and "All the Things You Are," along with two original Griffin compositions, "Ball Bearing" and "Smoke Stack." "The Way You Look Tonight" is particularly noteworthy, with the three tenors exchanging solos with a complexity and speed that remain astonishing, especially in the case of Griffin (dubbed the fastest saxophonist in the world) and Coltrane's ability to navigate complex chord changes at a rapid tempo.