Byrd In Hand is an album with an interesting relationship to Thelonious Monk, as Bob Blumenthal points out in his new set of liner notes (Ira Gitler’s original notes are also included). Monk had presented his music in a landmark concert at New York’s Town Hall only four months before the recording of this session. That concert included not only Monk’s working quartet (Charlie Rouse, Sam Jones, and Art Taylor) but also Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams, who had been working together prior to the event. When it came time for Byrd to cut his latest studio session for Blue Note, he simply took Rouse, Jones, and Taylor along while continuing his association with Adams. Pianist Walter Davis, Jr., who had knew both Monk and Bud Powell, proved the perfect fit for the piano chair. This group recorded what was probably Byrd’s best recording to that date.

Byrd and Adams were certainly aware of the dynamics of the trumpet/baritone sax relationship as posited by Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, but their take on it was completely their own. Byrd’s playing, which was heavily influenced by Clifford Brown, takes the lead, while Adams, playing differently in both tone and style than either of the two contemporary baritone sax models (Mulligan and Serge Chaloff) punctuates the proceedings with his (excuse the pun) peppery commentary.

With the exception of one standard (“Witchcraft”) the numbers here are all either Byrd or Davis originals. Byrd’s “Here Am I” is especially beautiful, offering a vamp-punctuated melody somewhat in the manner of Miles Davis’s “So What.” Walter Davis’s “Bronze Dance” has a 28-bar structure alternating a Latin beat with a full-out swing section, a study in contrasts that works well and gives the soloists ample material to work with. Byrd in Hand is an essential buy for anyone interested in Byrd or Adams.