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Critic's Review
Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
A CD reissue of trumpeter Booker Little's Victory and Sorrow album for Bethlehem, this release adds two previously unheard alternate takes of "Matilde" to the original program. Little's final recording before he died of uremia at the age of 23, the sextet session also features fine playing by trombonist Julian Priester, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, pianist Don Friedman, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Pete LaRoca. However, Booker Little is generally the top soloist on the harmonically advanced hard bop date and he is in peak form throughout although he would pass away on October 5 of that year. Of his six originals, "Molotone Music" and "Victory and Sorrow" are most memorable even if Little's beautiful playing on a quartet version of the date's one standard, "If I Should Lose You," is actually the highpoint.
