Bill Hardman – Home (1978) [vinyl 24/48]

Newly ripped from the danair vinyl collection.

Review by Mike Hennessey, Jazz Journal, November 1980:
Bill Harman has spent a good part of his musical career with various editions of Blakey's Jazz Messengers and in more than 30 years on the jazz scene has scant opportunity to record under his own name. This Muse album is thus a welcome release — the more so because Hardman probably comes closer than most trumpet players of his generation to capturing the spirit and attack of his great idol, Clifford Brown.
This is a fine album. Hardman has assembled an excellent team of musicians and the soloists have a good chance to stretch out. Victor Jones isa splendid drummer, and with forceful and ever-creative Hampton storms through the date with tremendous zest; Junior Cook can rarely have been heard to better effect, Mickey Turner comps and solos with unflagging energy and invention and Hardman crackles away on trumpet and flugel horn in the best Brownie tradition.
Samba Do Brilho — the sort of music to play in your pad? — has excellent solos from the front line; Jones's driving drums give tremendous lift to Once I Loved and there is magnificent solo work from Hardman, a powerful contribution from Cook, playing in what could be described as a "Rolltrane" style, and a fluent, vigorous solo from Hampton.
My Pen Is Hot (a Tucker original whose title may or may not be connected with the fact that the band includes a Hampton and a Hardman) doesn't quite work as a jazz vehicle because the chord sequence is too tricky and militates against continuity of line. The solos are nevertheless impressive again, with Tucker in distinctly Silverish mood.
Rancho Cevarro is another Tucker composition with rapid changes of texture and rhythmic foundation. Tucker certainly has a flair for unexpected changes and the horn players cope remarkably well.
I Remember Love is a forgotten Dameron song which features Hardman on flugel horn — though still with that crackling, biting tone. He gives it a moving reading and sets a lustrous seal on a very fine album.

1. Samba Do Brilho
2. Once I Loved
3. My Pen Is Hot
4. Rancho Cevarro
5. I Remember Love

Bill Hardman It, flhl; Junior Cook Its); Slide Hampton (tb); Mickey Tucker (p); Chin Suzuki (b); Victor Jones (d); Lawrence Killian (perc).
RVG. New Jersey, January 10, 1978.
(Muse MR 5152)