Complete 1957-1958 Quintet & Sextet Sessions (2 CD Set)

Benny Golson was just 17 when he fell under the spell of composer/arranger Tadd Dameron s writing. Tadd s music really ignited the spark for me, he said. After hearing things like Our Delight and Lady Bird, I had more of a definite goal. I wanted to do more than play tenor sax.

I wanted to write. By 28 he was playing and writing for the Dizzy Gillespie band. Most arrangers in those days had an adequate facility on one instrument or another, but those who excelled as writers and instrumentalists were very few. Benny was one of them. Since then, his skills as a writer have been so acclaimed that sometimes critics forget that he was also a very swinging tenor man, as these 1957-1958 recordings, his first as a leader, demonstrate: a fusion of thinking and blowing that represents modern jazz at its skillful, provocative, imaginative best.