Whistle Stop (album)

Whistle Stop is a jazz studio album by Kenny Dorham, featuring performances by acclaimed musicians Hank Mobley, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. It was recorded in January 1961 at Van Gelder Studio, in Englewood Cliffs, and was originally released on Blue Note Records as BST 84063 and BLP 4063. "In 1975", Blumenthal states in the CD liner notes, "five British critics picked Whistle Stop as one of 200 albums that belonged in a basic library of jazz recorded after World War II".

Whistle Stop
Studio album by
Kenny Dorham
ReleasedJune 1961[1]
RecordedJanuary 15, 1961
StudioVan Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs
GenreJazz, hard bop
Length38:43
LabelBlue Note
BST 84063
ProducerAlfred Lion
Kenny Dorham chronology
Showboat
(1961)		 Whistle Stop
(1961)		 Ease It
(1961)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
DownBeat[3]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[4]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings [5]

Notes about the album tracks

"Philly Twist" is dedicated to Philly Joe Jones. Kenny added "There is also the play on words with filly, a young horse." "Buffalo" tries to portray a buffalo in action, whilst "Sunset" tries to represent the feeling of an imaginary sunset. "Whistle Stop" is an attempt to depict a train in motion. About "Sunrise in Mexico", Dorham says: "The skies down there", in Mexico, "are low and everything looks different". "Windmill" talks about an old girlfriend of all of us, who can live by the windmill. Dorham explains that "a windmill, a weathered, gray-wood affair, is represented in the last four bars of the track". "Dorham's Epitaph" was intended by Dorham to be a sort of musical epitaph, an "identifying song".[6]

Reception

The contemporaneous DownBeat reviewer, John S. Wilson, praised the variety of compositions, but added that the written material was not extended beyond opening and closing statements, and that Dorham's solo playing was appealing but "almost invariably running thin toward the end".[3]

Track listing

All pieces by Kenny Dorham.

  1. "Philly Twist" - 5:39
  2. "Buffalo" - 7:43
  3. "Sunset" - 6:20
  4. "Whistle Stop" - 5:56
  5. "Sunrise in Mexico" - 5:39
  6. "Windmill" - 6:17
  7. "Dorham's Epitaph" - 1:09

Personnel

References
  1. 2015 liner notes to the Japanese SHM-CD by Michael Cuscuna
  2. Whistle Stop at AllMusic
  3. Wilson, John S. (August 31, 1961). "Kenny Dorham: Whistle Stop". DownBeat. Vol. 28, no. 18. p. 26.
  4. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 64. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  5. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 393. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  6. Original liner notes by Ira Gitler
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