DONALD BYRD — Byrd in Flight (review)

DONALD BYRD — Byrd in Flight album cover Album · 1960 · Hard Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Generally seen by Byrd fans as of one of his better albums of the era, In Flight is just another fairly typical standard jazz album, but this writer can’t help but feeling that Donald had missed out on the 1959 cornerstone year, where jazz took an all-important and future-determining turn (such as Time Out, KoB, etc…). But then again, this is a bit typical of Byrd, as he will often jump on bandwagons, rather than kick-starting the locomotive. You’ll find the same thing in the JR/F wave, where he’s late by a full stadium track lap. Generally though Byrd makes up for his lack of groundbreaking by making spotless reargard albums, and this is certainly valid for In Flight.

Indeed, while miles was Sketching Spain, Trane was busy exploring the African continent, Lateef was setting paths in the Middle-East soundscape and Ornette was going dissonant, Byrd was quite busy recording the mid-to late 50’s standard-type jazz. Soooooo, In Flight is certainly a nice (maybe even great) album, if you’re into that kind of (too?) gentle and melodic stuff. I dare say that if this is your kick, then the present should probably stand as one of the prime examples of what to do; and not surprisingly, this is a very-typical Blue Note product, in all its glory. The huge majority of the album’s composition are at-best mid-tempo, but more often so rather slow-paced tunes, where Byrd’s trumpet takes Miles-sonics, Mobley’s sax being close to what he did on his solo albums of the era. Pearson’s piano and Watkins and Humphries’ contributions being pretty standard and right in the bull’s-eye of what’s expected from them.

BUT, that’s probably also nailing the nail dead-on its head: this is all-too conventional for this writer, especially in regards to jazz historical developments taking place in those years. OK, I’ll grant you that I wasn’t even born when this album his the record shop racks, but neither was I for KoB, SoP, Time Out and I was 1-year old when my fave ALS album hit the public loke a 10-ton truck. Never saw Byrd live, but apart/outside of the awesome Ethiopian Knights and one or two more albums from the early-70’s, there seems to be consistent lack of energy that a child of the 60’s and teenager of the 70’s expects from his music. Don’t get me wrong, In Flight is an excellent album in its genre, it’s just that it is not mine.

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