Greatest Hits

Product Description:

Personnel includes: Gene Ammons (tenor saxophone); Houston Person, Prince James, Richard Landry, Sonny Stitt (tenor saxophone); Ernie Royal, Robert Prado (trumpet); Garnett Brown (trombone); Harold Mabern (acoustic & electric pianos); Junior Mance (piano); Sonny Phillips, Leon Spencer (organ); Billy Butler, George Freeman (guitar); Chuck Rainey (electric bass); Bob Bushnell, Ron Cartes, Buster Williams (bass); Frankie Jones, Idris Muhammed, Bernard Purdie (drums); Candido (congas); Omar Clay (percussion).

Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey between November 1969 and July 1971. Includes liner notes by Bob Porter.

Digitally remastered using 24-bit technology by Rudy Van Gelder (1998, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey).

In 1969, Gene Ammons was released from prison, where he'd been incarcerated after a drug conviction, and threw himself into recording like a man possessed. He was undaunted by such changes in jazz as the New Thing/avant-garde, funk, or the rumblings of fusion, and in fact adapted to them effortlessly. (Avant-saxophonist Ellery Eskelin points to him as a major influence.)

This GREATEST HITS package presents a cross-section of his '70s material, during which time he recorded in many settings, from small groups with organ and electric wah-wah guitar, to bands with a string section, working out on searing originals ("Ger-Ru"), and pop standards such as Sinatra's "My Way." On the opener "The Jungle Boss," a cooking skillet of early-70s jazz-funk, Ammons adopts the emotional cries of the avant posse such as John Coltrane and Sam Rivers in his sound. On "Long Long Time," he remakes the song in his image, retaining the haunting melancholy of this Linda Rondstadt gem. In his twilight of his years, Ammons was still a vital, emotional saxophone master.