''Whistle Stop'' is a jazz studio album by

Kenny Dorham McKinley Howard "Kenny" Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention or public ...

, featuring performances by acclaimed musicians

Hank Mobley Henry "Hank" Mobley (July 7, 1930 – May 30, 1986) was an American hard bop and soul jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to descr ...

Kenny Drew Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew (August 28, 1928 – August 4, 1993) was an American-Danish jazz pianist. Biography Drew was born in New York City, United States, and received piano lessons from the age of five.Feather, Leonard, & Ira Gitler (2 ...

Paul Chambers Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was an American jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, he has become one of the most widely-known jazz bassists of the hard bop era. ...

and

Philly Joe Jones Joseph Rudolph "Philly Joe" Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was an American jazz drummer. Biography Early career As a child, Jones appeared as a featured tap dancer on ''The Kiddie Show'' on the Philadelphia radio station WIP. He was ...

. 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".

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".Original liner notes by

Ira Gitler Ira Gitler (December 18, 1928 – February 23, 2019) was an American jazz historian and journalist. The co-author of ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'' with Leonard Feather—the most recent edition appeared in 1999—he wrote hundreds of ...

Reception

The contemporaneous ''

DownBeat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'' 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".

Track listing

''All pieces by Kenny Dorham.'' #"Philly Twist" - 5:39 #"Buffalo" - 7:43 #"Sunset" - 6:20 #"Whistle Stop" - 5:56 #"Sunrise in Mexico" - 5:39 #"Windmill" - 6:17 #"Dorham's Epitaph" - 1:09

Personnel

- trumpet *

- tenor sax (except track 7) *

- piano *

- double bass *

- drums

References

{{Authority control 1961 albums Blue Note Records albums Kenny Dorham albums Albums produced by Alfred Lion Bebop albums Albums recorded at Van Gelder Studio