Frank Foster is one of our favorite talents in jazz – an excellent tenorist who spent some of his key years in the
Count Basie orchestra, but a player who also had a very rich career on his own as well! This album features Frank's talents really coming to the forefront of the
Basie group – in a set of all-original material penned and arranged by Foster – really fresh tunes that are a perfect fit for the soulful spirit of the reedman's collaborators in the group, and which definitely show off the growing talents of Foster as a composer. There's a lot more going on here than you might expect – some surprisingly complicated charts for the horns, yet still with that rock-solid swing you'd expect from
Basie – and most tracks are longer than usual for a Roulette album, nicely open numbers that include "Brotherly Shove", "Easin It", "Blues For Daddy-O", "Four Five Six", and "Mama Dev".
(Mono orange label pressing. Cover has light wear, some yellowing from age, and splitting in the seams.)