Urbie Green

This killer set combines both volumes of master Urbie Green's early-'60s The Persuasive Trombone of Urbie Green recordings on a single disc. The sessions for these dates took place between 1960 and 1962, and featured two different bands. The first sessions feature cats like Hal McKusick, Milt Hinton, Doc Severinsen, a very young Rolf Kuhn, and Detroit baritone boss Pepper Adams. The track list is impressive as well: Johnny Mercer's"Dream," a romping reading of "I Can't Get Started," and Johnny Burke's "It Could Happen to You." The latter volume keeps Hinton and Severinsen on some tunes but adds the great vibraphonist Eddie Costa, and baritone saxophonist Stan Webb replaces Adams. The program is equally divided between ballads and swinging modern big-band material, including great arrangements of "Skylark" and "I Fall in Love Too Easily." If this weren't enough, to fill out the CD the producers added four numbers from Green's sextet sessions, including "On a Slow Boat to China" and "Poor Soul," with some beautiful interplay between the leader and Costa. It seems Lonehill Jazz always does it right. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide