Critic's Review
Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
This excellent session (recorded at Half Moon Bay in 1976 but not released until this 1995 CD) features trumpeter Blue Mitchell with four Northern California musicians: the obscure Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonist Mike Morris, pianist Mark Levine, bassist Kenny Jenkins and drummer Smiley Winters. The repertoire is fresh, consisting of a nearly 17-minute "Pleasure Bent," athe warm ballad "Portrait of Jenny," a song called "Sweet Smiley Winters" that is really a "Sweet Georgia Brown" line penned decades earlier by Coleman Hawkins, Levine's "Something Old, Something Blue" and a brief "Blues Theme." Mitchell is heard in prime form throughout the enjoyable straightahead set which contains a few subtle surprises.
