Scorcher. Crucial Jackie Mac, with Pete La Roca also on top form.
‘Classic Vinyl Series.’

Live at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, at the close of 1961. Jackie Mac is on fire. Tearing version of Una Mas a year before the Blue Note. Leroy Vinnegar, Walter Bishop, Art Taylor.
Scorcher!

The rivetingly lucid, acrobatic expression of raw emotion characteristic of this altoist, fronting the same unit which had recently recorded Sonny Clark’s masterpiece Leapin’ And Lopin’, including Tommy Turrentine, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins.
Supposedly Clark came across the music of the opener knocking around Monk’s apartment. Amongst five JM originals, the title track shows how hard bop was too hip to sit still or look back. Sundu is a tasty Clark blues.

The more expensive new LP is in the all-analogue Blue Note 80 Vinyl series.

Recorded between Let Freedom Ring and One Step Beyond, it’s presumably the laidback presence of HJ hero Sonny Clark — who also contributes half the compositions — which tips the scales away from JM’s more screwface, outward-bound trajectory, towards good-old-fashioned, limber, bluesy hard bop. Though a throwback, cancelled at the time (and shelved for twenty years), it’s downright classic Blue Note now.