Donald Byrd - Royal Flush / RVG edition

2006 European CD reissue.

On Thursday, 21 September 1961, Detroit trumpeter Donald Byrd took a quintet into Rudy Van Gelder’s famed New Jersey recording studio to lay down the tracks for what became Royal Flush, his eighth album for Blue Note Records. Though still only three months shy of his 29th birthday, Byrd could almost be considered a veteran at this point, such was his experience both on stage and in the recording studio. Indeed, his CV was mightily impressive, including a stint as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, alongside work as a sideman on albums by John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Horace Silver, Jackie McLean, Red Garland, Lou Donaldson and numerous others.

Royal Flush remains a significant album in Donald Byrd’s canon. While it waved goodbye to a five-year association with Pepper Adams – it would be his and Byrd’s final collaboration together – it also introduced the world to his protégé Herbert Jeffrey Hancock, who, shortly afterwards, would go on to make his mark as both a solo artist and as a member of the groundbreaking Miles Davis Quintet.

Though Hancock left Blue Note in 1969 to start new adventures elsewhere, Byrd stayed with the label until 1976, by which time he was in the vanguard of the fusion and jazz-funk movements. Even so, Royal Flush remains a go-to album from the trumpeter’s golden hard bop period, even though it finds him stretching the boundaries of the genre. But that wouldn’t have been possible without the presence of Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins. They were the aces up Byrd’s sleeve, and their youth opened up new vistas of sonic expression, helping to take the trumpeter – and jazz – in an exciting new direction.