At the Cafe Bohemia, Vols. 1 & 2 are a pair of separate but related live albums by the Jazz Messengers recorded at the Café Bohemia jazz club in Greenwich Village on November 23, 1955, and released on Blue Note in April 1956.
Background
Release history With the July 31, 2001 CD reissues, three additional tracks where added to each volume: "Lady Bird", "Deciphering the Message", and "What's New?" to the first, and "Just One for Those Things", "Hank´s Symphony" and "Gone with the Wind" to the second.
Reception
The AllMusic reviews called the albums "still timeless music" that have "influenced jazz up to present time".
The Penguin Guide to Jazz noted, while At the Cafe Bohemia didn't "match the intensity which the quintet secured at Birdland", the playing in general "is just as absorbing", calling saxophonist Hank Mobley "a somewhat unfocused stylist" while praising trumpeter Kenny Dorham as an "elusive brilliance [that] was seldom so extensively captured".
Track listing
CD Reissues
Personnel
The Jazz Messengers Kenny Dorham – trumpet Hank Mobley – tenor saxophone Horace Silver – piano Doug Watkins – bass Art Blakey – drums
Technical personnel
Original Alfred Lion – producer Leonard Feather – liner notes John Hermansader – cover design Francis Wolff – photography
Reissue Michael Cuscuna – reissue producer Rudy Van Gelder – digital remastering Bob Bluementhal – liner notes
References