Ernie Wilkins - Top Brass (1955/2018)

Although he was a better than average saxophonist with Count Basie, by the time of these 1950s sessions for Savoy, Ernie Wilkins was working exclusively as an arranger and composer. Most of the music within this compilation comes from a 1955 session with trumpeters Donald Byrd, Ray Copeland, Ernie Royal, Idrees Sulieman, and Joe Wilder, pianist Hank Jones, bassist Wendell Marshall, and drummer Kenny Clarke. Four of the first five tracks are swinging originals by Wilkins, and there's also an obscure Johnny Mandel blues, "Dot's What." The remaining music from the first session is a ballad medley where each trumpeter is featured in turn playing a personal favorite, all of which have become time-tested standards. If there's any complaint about this studio date at all, it is the excess reverb used at times, which is surprising due to Rudy Van Gelder's usually impeccable sound. The bonus tracks are from another Wilkins-led session from 1957; trumpeters Art Farmer, Charlie Shavers, Emmett Berry, and Harold "Shorty" Baker join Royal, with Don Abney taking over on piano and Bobby Donaldson on drums. Both of Wilkins' originals, "Blues in 6/4" and "Trumpets All Out," are enjoyable even if they never became widely known. Because reissues of Savoy dates seem to surface and go out of print with blazing speed (this 2001 issue was evidently licensed to Atlantic), fans of Ernie Wilkins are advised not to linger in purchasing this recommended CD.