condition (record/cover): NM / EX

Obi included.

David Murray on the Italian Red Records catalog in its DIW incarnation - the transatlantic documentation network that kept the tenor colossus in constant vinyl circulation through his most fertile years, Italian and Japanese devotion combining forces. The title tips its hat to the lineage Murray always claimed loudly and proudly: the hip elders, the Gonsalves-Webster-Rollins line of huge-toned storytellers, extended by a player who could quote the whole tradition inside a single climbing phrase and then leap past it into the overblown stratosphere without dropping a thread. That double citizenship - swing-era warmth, loft-era daring - is the Murray signature, and it runs through every track here.

Italian and Japanese pressings of this era Murray are dependable quality and steady sellers both, moving briskly whenever tenor devotees pass through. Another strong chapter from a discography so vast it constitutes its own collecting field - and rewards the deep exploration it demands. Hipman: last of, and worthy of the title.