Vinyl LP pressing. Following sideman appearances with pianist Horace Parlan in the early 1960s, Booker Ervin cut two stellar Blue Note records as a leader in 1968 including Tex Book Tenor which had to wait nearly 40 years until 2005 for it's first standalone release. With a sleek post-bop quintet featuring trumpeter Woody Shaw, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Jan Arnet, and drummer Billy Higgins, the Texas-born saxophonist slices through a set of compelling bandmember originals including Barron's sinuous tune "Gichi" and Shaw's lilting waltz "In a Capricornian Way," as well as Ervin's lovely ballad "Lynn's Tune" and the hard-swinging "Den Tex," named for his hometown of Denison.
Live recordings, 1972-1882. Ervin Nyiregyházi (1903-87) is largely forgotten today, but he was one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic pianists of the twentieth century, and his eccentric personality and bizarre career have few parallels in the history of music. These late concert recordings, all but four released here for the first time, are representative of Nyiregyházi's art, and should help to rehabilitate a lost genius whose reputation has rarely matched his artistic stature.
