ProJazz.net

The official audio of Booker Little’s “We Speak” from the newly remastered album Out Front.

Out Front is probably the greatest realization on record of trumpeter Booker Little’s scope as a musician and composer. It is also one of only five sessions led by Little as a band leader before his premature death at the age of 23 in 1961. The sextet on these dates include the great Max Roach on drums, Eric Dolphy on reeds, and Julian Priester on trombone. At the time, a growing number of younger jazz artists were exploring ways to further expand the range and depth of communication in jazz. This album is a perfect example of that “new wave.”

Recorded at the Nola Penthouse Sound Studios, in New York City and produced by Hentoff in the spring of 1961, the album was released just months before Little’s passing later that year.