At 26,
Courtney Pine in 1989 seemed to be on his way to being one of the top tenors in jazz although at that point he was still heavily influenced by
John Coltrane. This set was a bit of a departure for
Pine, who often displays a wild extroverted style, was (if anything) overly respectful to the standards that he interprets. Perhaps this was due to the presence of pianist
Ellis Marsalis who leads a trio consisting of bassist Delbert Felix and drummer
Jeff Watts.
Pine sounds restricted to the melody with only slight variations on some of the numbers including "In a Mellow Tone," "Skylark" and "God Bless the Child." He does cut loose a bit on a few of the other pieces but his solos in general are much briefer than usual. The best moments are
Pine's outings on both tenor and soprano on "A Raggamuffin's Stance," "I'm an Old Cowhand" and a stormy
Coltrane-ish "Giant Steps." It is a pity that the rest of the album is not of that same intensity. In addition,
Delfeayo Marsalis' self-righteous and pompous liner notes are a definite minus. ~ Scott Yanow