The Beginning and the End brings together Clifford Brown's first session—with a Jamaican rhythm-and-blues singer named Chris Powell—and tapes of an informal Philadelphia jam session the brilliant trumpeter participated in the night of his death on the Pennsylvania turnpike. The intervening time span was a brief four years, but during those years Brown established himself as the foremost trumpet soloist in jazz. His big fat sound, piercing lyricism and cascading phrases are immediately recognizable, and for sheer virtuosity he had few equals. By 1956, when his final session was taped, he was soaring. His accompanists solo ably but Brownie simply leaves them in the dust. He negotiates Charlie Parker's difficult "Donna Lee" as if it were a nursery rhyme, and absolutely destroys "Night In Tunisia."

Brown recorded some of his best work with a quintet he fronted in cooperation with drummer Max Roach. Daahoud contains previously unissued tapes of this quintet, and is a worthy companion to The Beginning and the End. The latter has a slight edge because of its in-person excitement, but both are welcome additions to the discography of a giant whose abrupt end was an especially tragic event in the history, not just of jazz, but of American music. (RS 147)

B.P.