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Red Garland was influenced by Powell, as well as by Nat Cole and Ahmad Jamal, and he managed to incorporate these influences into his own distinctive style that was heavy on the blues. Garland was an imaginative improviser, and his calling card became his distinctive use of block chord voicings that combined octaves with the fifth in the middle of the right hand, and accompanying chords in the left hand. Garland’s style is eloquent and sophisticated, like Jamal’s, but has a sufficient blues groove to keep any accusations of ‘cocktail’ piano style at bay. In addition, Garland had a solid knowledge of bop harmonic structure, and could easily fit in with a modern outfit, as demonstrated by his work with Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Garland recorded prolifically in 1956 and 1957, with the November ’57 session that produced Soul Junction also providing the tracks for All Mornin’ Long and part of High Pressure. Many of these sessions also included John Coltrane, with whom Garland had been working in the Miles Davis Quintet that recorded the classic series of albums Workin’, Steamin’, Relaxin’, and Cookin’.

It’s been noted frequently that Coltrane and Garland were perfectly complementary together, and that can certainly be heard here. On the opening title track, a lengthy blues number, Garland renders a perfectly bluesy roadhouse solo, then provides the perfect background for Trane’s explorations that already point beyond the limits of the standard blues harmonic structure. He’s equally at home on ‘Woody ‘n You,’ with Donald Byrd’s hard bop Clifford Brown-influenced style. In fact, this group is so perfectly balanced, poised between jazz’s present and future, with a firm grounding in the past, that it is remarkable to think what they may have been like if they had been a working band (the group did play a few live gigs, but not many).

A classic album that has been well loved for many years, it’s great to hear Soul Junction in it 24 bit digital remaster as part of the Prestive RVG remasters. Anyone with an interest in great post-bop small group playing and in the art of jazz piano needs this in their collection.