Liner Notes

Trumpeter Donald Byrd was only 2 years into his 2 decade long Blue Note recording career when he brought his quintet into Manhattan’s Half Note Café in November 1960 to record this soulful, swinging, and highly enjoyable live set of hard bop featuring Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, Duke Pearson on piano, Laymon Jackson on bass, and Lex Humphries on drums. Byrd had already established himself as a leading trumpeter on the scene and was riding high on a creative hot streak that produced the studio albums Off To The Races , Byrd In Hand , Fuego , and Byrd In Flight . At The Half Note Café, Vol.

2 jumps right into Pearson’s brightly swinging “Jeannine” and includes two Byrd tunes—an extended take of the band’s bluesy theme song “Pure D. Funk” & the hard-grooving “Kimyas”—as well as a lilting take on the standard “When Sonny Gets Blue.”