Art Farmer “Farmers Market” (1956)

Track Selection: “Ad-Dis-Sun” I>

Prestige 8203 New Jazz Original   Art Farmer (t) Kenny Drew (p) Hank Mobley (ts) Addison Farmer (b) Elvin Jones (d)  Recorded Rudy Van Gelder Jul 2, 1953 & Nov 23, 1956

An early outing in small group format for Farmer’s distinctive trumpet voice, schooled in big bands on the West Coast. The Art Farmer Quintet: Hank Mobley flexes his fingers on tenor saxophone, whilst Art’s twin brother Addison Farmer takes on bass,  Elvin Jones steady hands on the beat, and Kenny Drew embellishes the tunes with tasteful bluesy-fills on piano.

“Farmers Market”? With a name like Art Farmer, play-on-words record titles were inevitable, like Modern Art. The best known track is the album-titled strenouos tempo “Farmers Market” but I prefer the mid to down tempo dedication to bass player Addison sampled here. Especially as any excuse to listen to Mobley rapidly maturing tenor style in solo.

Soon after the Quintet, Farmer went on to form the military-precision bop force “The Jazztet” with Benny Golson, where an articulate and tuneful trumpet meets with an articulate and tuneful tenor sax.

Labels, run-out and liner notes

Original pressing from 1956 on purple New Jazz labels, deep groove, deep groove indentation under the label  found only in pressings the period, never with facsimile reissues. RVG machine stamp in the runout,indicating the presence of The Master sound engineer.

Significance of the “horseshoe” stamp? Prestiges answer to the Plastylite “ear”?

Collectors Tales

A UK seller had been disposing of a top notch collection including many desirables, each fetching several hundred pounds. He drip-fed the collection every week, listing around four records including one to kill for. All eyes on the week’s killer record, this “also-ran” was eclipsed, and somehow slipped under the radar. Popsike picks up the story:

So there you have it. Not end of the earth at £25, sole bidder. Another example of how luck comes in to prices. Just one other person in the entire world wanting it and … up the balloon goes…