Book Cooks

Booker Ervin belongs in the tenor sax hall of fame with his contemporaries Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson. Booker Ervin, like John Coltrane, had a tragically foreshortened career, bubbling up from almost total obscurity in the very late '50s, and dying (again in near-total obscurity) in 1970. Right from the slow, lowdown bass walk that opens "The Blue Book," this album announces that it is the real thing. Booker Ervin with his keening sound, the unacknowledged master Tommy Turrentine, the great Tommy Flanagan, bedrock man George Tucker, dancing Dannie Richmond and last but not least there's Zoot Sims who's blowing a fabulous duel with Booker Ervin on the 11-minute title track.