Great Jazz Albums (IMO) #40

Harold Land. The Fox (1959). Harold Land, "a strong bop stylist" on the tenor saxophone, was underrated because, as one reviewer noted, he settled  in Los Angeles instead of the jazz mecca of New York.  He moved to the West Coast, leaving the legendary Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet after recording one of the all-time great albums in 1955.  Land, however, did not fit within the West Coast cool category (not that there is anything wrong with that).  He was more readily put in the hard bop category.  One critic described him as having a strong tone with a "somewhat melancholy edge to it, which added glints of emotion and even a certain vulnerability to his playing."  The Fox, recorded in 1959, provides an excellent example of Land's formidable style.  The pianist in the quintet is the great Elmo Hope, another underrated composer and player, who wrote four of the pieces on the album, while Land wrote the other two.

[Related posts:  Great Jazz Albums  #1 (Hank Mobley), #2 (Horace Silver), #3 (Sonny Rollins), #4 (Sonny Clark), #5 (Dexter Gordon), #6 (Cannonball Adderley); #7 (Bill Evans), #8 (McCoy Tyner), #9 (Clifford Brown), #10 (Sinatra), #11 (Monk), #12 (Kenny Dorham), #13 (Coltrane), #14 (Duke Ellington), #15 (Miles Davis), #16 (Wayne Shorter), #17 (Dinah Washington); #18 (Sarah Vaughan); #19 (Stan Getz); #20 (Blue Mitchell); #21 (Gene Ammons); #22 (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers); #23 (Red Garland); #24 (Ella Fitzgerald); #25 (Charlie Parker); #26 (Art Pepper); #27 (Bud Powell); #28 (John Hicks); #29 (Kenny Barron); #30 (Coleman Hawkins); #31 (Count Basie);  #32 (Benny Carter w/ Ben Webster and Barney Bigard); #33 (Chet Baker); #34 (Thad  Jones); #35 (The Great Jazz Trio); #36 (Ahmad Jamal); #37 (Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond); #38 (Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis); #39 (Charles McPherson)]