Nathan Davis

SABA Tonstudio, Villingen, 31 January 1965 (the CD reissue says the 30th). Nathan Davis's first record under his own name, and one of the earliest in the catalogue that became MPS. The credits note the equipment: six Neumann U67 microphones and a SABA T600 tape recorder.

The band is the Paris band. Woody Shaw, twenty years old, on trumpet; Larry Young, the organist of Unity, here on piano, one of his rare appearances on the instrument; Jimmy Woode on bass; Billy Brooks on drums. Davis plays tenor, soprano and flute, and MPS's own note points to The Flute in the Blues as the piece to hear. Shaw's Zoltan, which he would record again on Unity later that year, is here first.

MPS calls it probably the album with the cutest cover in their catalogue. Dusty Groove, reviewing the Two Originals CD that paired it with The Hip Walk, describes music that had been legendary for years and calls Davis a player who never got his due in the history books. Davis died in 2018 at 81.

Japanese CD edition from Solid's MPS series.