Grand Slam

“I first heard about him from some of his fellow members in Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in 1948. The cat can do anything – he plays powerful, accurate lead trumpet and then he can take a solo that will turn you around.’ They were talking about Harold (Benny) Bailey, and, as I began to hear him, I understood and shared their enthusiasm; for Benny was – and is – a continuous source of swinging surprise. He does have it all: prodigious technique which he uses as naturally as he breathes; a brilliant but warm sound; flawless jazz time; and a conception which, though rooted in the masters of the modern trumpet, is joyfully, ebulliently his own”! -from the original notes by Nat Hentoff