Jackie McLean: Long Drink of the Blues (LP)

It was Charles Mingus who, in the mid-1950s, first tried to alter Jackie McLean's playing style, which was fully entrenched in Charlie Parker's sound at the time. I never really sounded like Bird, but that was my mission, said McLean during a WBGO radio interview. I didn't care if people said that I copied him; I loved Bird's playing so much. But Mingus was the one that really pushed me away from the idea and forced me into thinking about having an individual sound and concept. McLean (born in New York on May 17, 1931; he died on March 31, 2006, at the age of 73) is featured here on two different sessions. The first, on Side A, is a blowing date in a sextet format (with McLean playing tenor sax) which also produced three tracks later issued on the LP Makin' the Changes. The three ballads on Side B are in a quartet format, and were recorded during a session that also produced tracks issued on the aforementioned LP and on McLean's Scene.