The Jo Jones Special

This was the first album the man who plays like the wind did as a leader. On four of the numbers he fronted a septet with Nat Pierce on piano. Soloists Benny Green and Emmett Berry are excellent, but if one hornman especially excels here is tenor Lucky Thompson, one of the most unjustly neglected artists in jazz. On the two magnificently robust takes of Shoe Shine Boy, the guest pianist is Count Basie, thereby reuniting, for the first time in eight years, what was the greatest rhythm section in jazz. On Caravan, there were some changes on the line-up of the septet, but throughout all the sides, the uniting personality is Jo, a master of flowingly musical jazz drumming.