Horace Parlan

Up & Down is one of three Horace Parlan albums that simultaneously featured saxophonist Booker Ervin and guitarist Grant Green during the pianist's golden-era run at Blue Note. Parlan's standard rhythm section bassist George Tucker and drummer Al Harewood are here, but the presence of both Green and Ervin lends some serious meat-and-potatoes weight to this hard bop and primordial soul-jazz session. Ervin's earthy tone highlighted numerous sets by Parlan, but the presence of Green, who was quickly becoming a rising star at this point, put the earth tones back into the virtuosic mix of talents. Green is a brilliant accompanist as well as a soloist on this program of six tunes -- a later CD edition added an alternate take of "Fugee" that first appeared on Mosaic's Parlan retrospective. Ervin is well matched for the trio interplay here; his fat Texas tenor sound is equally at home with the blues ("The Book's Beat"), strolling soul ("The Other Side of Town"), and hard bop ballads (Babs Gonzales' "Lonely One"). Green's blues are the bedrock of his workbook, and his scintillating accents and chord fills not only add dimension and warmth, but produce colors all their own. Parlan's playing is wonderfully complex here without once losing its sense of groove and feel. Whether laying out tightly knotted arpeggiated chord voicings on the Gonzales tune, hard and edgy soul on Tommy Turrentine's "Light Blue," or taut and fiery gospel and bop runs on his own "Up and Down," his facility is utterly magical, leaving one to wonder just how it is that he came to be known as a minor star in the canon and the Blue Note pantheon. This is a solid date with wonderfully articulated grooves and swinging hard bop; it is made to look and sound easy, but is anything but. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide