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Critic's Review
Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
This Okra-Tone two-fer compiles Hank Jones' 1958 quartet date The Talented Touch with sidemen Osie Johnson, Barry Galbraith, and Milt Hinton with 1960's Porgy and Bess side featuring Elvin Jones, Hinton, and Kenny Burrell with arrangements by Al Cohn. The Talented Touch is a solid date, but the tunes are so short it feels as if the players are barely breaking a sweat. By turns, the Porgy and Bess session offers wonderfully lyrical and impressionistic interpretations from the Gershwin classic with Jones and brother Elvin using a deft rhythmic approach to Cohn's charts, and Burrell's shimmering, warm tone anchors the tunes in a modern kind of hard bop swing. Neither of these recordings has been available on CD before, and this one probably won't be for long. Move it.
