Louis Hayes-Junior Cook- Quintet live at Onkel Pö´s Carnegie Hall, Hamburg 1976

Junior Cook, tenor saxophone
Ronnie Matthews, piano
Stafford James, bass
Louis Hayes, drums
(and Woody Shaw, having some drinks at the bar or so...)

recorded live at Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall, March 11, 1976

1. Moment To Moment (Johnny Mercer)
2. Four For Nothing (Tex Allen)

"In spite of the group's relatively short life during the first part of 1976, the Louis Hayes--Junior Cook unit was an important catalyst that helped rejuvenate the wellsprings of bop. Along with the bands of Ted Curson and Billy Harper, the Hayes-Cook group derived much of its inspiration and substance from the tradition established by Parker, Gillespie, Silver and Blakey.
Cook, for instance, after a two month stint with Diz in 1957, refined his funky, post-bop stylings during a six-year tenure with Horace Silver, 1958-64. Hayes, a Silver alum from the class of 1956-59, propelled bop-based groups led by Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson and Freddie Hubbard.
Woody Shaw, the young man with a horn who recently has captured critics and public alike, is firmly grounded in the canons of bop. Among his credits are Horace Silver (1965) and Art Blakey (1973).
Ronnie Mathews, in addition to tours with Blakey in the late 60s and early 70s, was an important contributor to the bands of Max Roach, Roy Haynes, Kenny Dorham and Hubbard. As for Stafford James, his resume lists Blakey, 1973-74, Chico Hamilton, Barry Harris and Bobby Timmons.
Though bop was the center of gravity for the Cook-Hayes band, the structural outlines provided by well-defined melodic, harmonic and rhythmic markers were considerably loosened by the "free" vocabulary developed by Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Cecil Taylor during the 1960s. This was especially true for Shaw, Mathews and James. Ichi-Ban, though recorded in 1976, has a sense of contemporaneity that derives from the players' superb musicality and commitment to the highest standards. This is real music played by real musicians who take their muse seriously." ---CHUCK BERG