Sublime, masterful singing — poetic, polyphonic, evocative sufferers — over a stately and atmospheric Java excursion, more sombre than mystical. Super-soulful. Ace.

We love this LP; it’s an old favourite. You can hear Teddy adjusting the influences of Hawk and Bird to meet the challenge of Rollins and Coltrane. You can’t go wrong with any of his West Coast albums from 1960-67, for Pacific, Contemporary and Prestige. Classy, bluesy, no frills West Coast jazz; cultured but tasty and with-it. This one has the warmth, purposefulness and swing of a classic Blue Note. Phineas Newborn plays a blinder, too.
Here’s the Penguin Guide: ‘One of the best mainstream albums of its day… beautifully and almost effortlessly crafted.’

Dazzling, revolutionary genius.

‘Stalling was a visionary whose work deserves consideration among the finest American avant-garde music ever recorded. As these selections from WB cartoons dating between 1936 and 1958 attest, his cut and paste style — a singular collision between jazz, classical, pop, and virtually everything else in between — was unprecedented in its utter disregard for notions of time, rhythm, and compositional development; Stalling didn’t just break the rules, he made them irrelevant. That in the process he created music beloved by succeeding generations of children is more impressive still’ (AllMusic).