Thad Jones on Blue Note, 1956

One of the greatest jazzmen to emerge from the Detroit area, Thad Jones was born in Pontiac, MI, in 1923 and in time would become known as a trumpeter, arranger, and composer. He came, of course, from a musical family (his brothers, Hank and Elvin Jones, made names for themselves as pianist and drummer respectively) and began his professional career playing with Sonny Stitt and Billy Mitchell. It was, however, as a sideman with Count Basie in the 1950s that Jones began to rise to prominence. Even though he was forced to share solo duties with the equally accomplished Joe Newman, Jones got a chance to compose and arrange while with the Count, and this experience would later prove extremely valuable. In the early '60s, Jones started to concentrate on arranging, and by 1965 he had teamed up with drummer Mel Lewis to organize the popular and influential Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, an outfit that boasted both established musicians and some outstanding young talent among its ranks. By the late 1970s, though, Jones had quit the orchestra and moved to Denmark, where he kept working steadily until his passing in 1986 at age 63.

Jones's first session as a leader for Blue Note took place at the New Jersey-based Rudy Van Gelder studio on March 13, 1956, and it was issued as Detroit-New York Junction, a tip of the hat to Jones's own roots. Overall, it's a very satisfying affair and already points to even greater things to come. It also gave Jones a chance to reunite with tenorist Billy Mitchell in a sextet that also features Kenny Burrell on guitar, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Oscar Pettiford on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. As the leader, Jones commands a great deal of attention with his spontaneous-sounding hard bop playing, yet there's also room for interesting solos by Burrell and Flanagan, and Pettiford's work on bass is never less than wonderful. The album also showcases Jones's talent as a composer, with three originals ("Tariff," "Zec," and the lengthy "Scratch") that seem tailor-made for his fresh, boppish approach, as well as for the rest of participants to show off their wares. The two standards selected are by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and while the opening track, "Blue Room," sets the pace perfectly for the whole album, it's the ballad "Little Girl Blue" that stands out, a highly lyrical reading with just trumpet, guitar, and bass. The word that critic Leonard Feather repeats the most in his original liner notes for the LP is "elegance," which is indeed appropriate when applied to this date and to the six musicians that make up this memorable Detroit-New York junction.