Trumpeter Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams recorded eight albums together between 1959 and 1970. Their combined sound was a perfect fit—Byrd's sweetly piercing trumpet and Adams's grunting attack on the baritone.
Their first album together was Byrd in Hand, recorded in May 1959 for Blue Note. The lineup was stunning: Donald Byrd (tp), Charlie Rouse (ts), Pepper Adams (bar), Walter Davis, Jr. (p), Sam Jones (b) and Art Taylor (d). Each musician added a different level of artistic aggression and intensity.
Bronze Dance by Walter Davis Jr. kicked off the second side of the LP. The track is hard bop perfection, shifting from minor to major and featuring superb solos by the front-line horns plus a Horace Silver-esque piano solo by Davis.
Here's Bronze Dance...
Other Perfection tracks in this ongoing series...
- Paul Desmond and Jim Hall: Any Other Time, go here.
- John Coltrane: You Say You Care, go here.
- Quincy Jones: Funk Junction, go here.
- Art Farmer's Work of Art, go here.
- Miles Davis: A Gal in Calico, go here.
- Gene Krupa: Mulligan Stew, go here.
- Dave Brubeck: The Duke, go here.
- Horace Silver: The Back Beat, go here.
- Horace Parlan: Up & Down, go here.
- Dexter Gordon: Society Red, go here.
- Barney Kessel: You Go to My Head, go here.
- Count Basie: Corner Pocket, go here.
- Herbie Mann: Manteca, go here.
