| This band was better known as the Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet, a magnificent unit that had grown even stronger when Sonny Rollins assumed the tenor chair a few months prior to these recordings. The album turned out to be one of only two examples of how the Rollins edition of Brown/Roach sounded, and it is best remembered for featuring “Pent-Up House” and the pioneering jazz waltz “Valse Hot,” two Rollins originals that quickly became jazz standards. Sadly, these proved to be the final studio performances of trumpet giant Brown and pianist Richie Powell, whose deaths in a highway accident three months later brought an end to one of the signature jazz groups of the 1950s. |
