"From 1941 to 1946, when servicemen began to drift back from the Pacific theatres, their pockets full of money, many of them to remain in Southern California, Central Avenue came to bear a striking resemblance to another street, remembered from another war, Basin Street, the thoroughfare of legendary Storyville, where jazz began." The liner notes wax lyrical on this truly historic recording. Jack Kerouac wrote of it in his seminal book "The Road": "They ate voraciously as Dean, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called 'The Hunt', with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume. The Southern folk looked at one another and shook their heads in awe." There is a momentous energy to this recording. The always sublime Dexter Gordon pairs with Wardell Gray on tenor to create a never ending be-bop line of staggering stamina (each piece clocks in at around the twenty minute mark): ever-building, simmering till it boils over. There is a natural catharsis in hearing the audience screaming for more ("Go! Go!"); you can feel the musicians move, sense the sweat on their brow as they lose themselves in the music to a truly captivated crowd.
Performers: Dexter Gordon/Wardell Gray (t-sx), Howard McGhee (tp), Trummy Young (tb), Barney Kessel (gt), Hampton Hawes (pi), Harry Babasin/Red Callender (bs), Connie Kay/Ken Kennedy (dr)
A. Disorder At The Border
B. Cherokee
C. Byas-A-Drink
D. The Hunt
mp3/320kbps
