The recent post featuring the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet in the 1950s led a couple of Rifftides readers to suggest that we hear more of Brown’s sparkling trumpet playing. He became a major jazz artist before his death at 26 in an automobile accident in 1956 and has been a major influence on every generation of trumpet players since. Let’s listen to his composition “Tiny Capers,†with Clifford leading an ensemble that also includes Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone; Bob Gordon, baritone sax; Stu Williamson, valve trombone; Russ Freeman, piano; Carson Smith, bass; and Shelly Manne, drums…an all-star group if there ever was one…at the height of the West Coast Jazz movement.                                Â
Clifford Brown and company in July, 1954, from an album that is likely to be part of the essential jazz repertoire for years, even decades, to come.