Ervin, Booker: Structurally Sound (Blue Note Tone Poet) LP

Best known for his association with Charles Mingus, the Texas-born tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin was a distinctive soloist with an assertive and immediately recognizable sound. One of Ervin’s pinnacle statements as a leader was the first of his two Pacific Jazz albums, Structurally Sound, which he cut in 1966 shortly after returning to the U.S. from a two-year period of living in Barcelona and working across Europe. Featuring Ervin fronting a top-shelf quintet with Charles Tolliver on trumpet, John Hicks on piano, Red Mitchell on bass, and Lenny McBrowne on drums, the sublime program included originals by Ervin (“Boo’s Blues”) and Tolliver (“Franess”), songbook standards (“Dancing in the Dark,” “You’re My Everything,” and “Deep Night”), and pieces by eminent jazz composers: Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train,” Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments,” and Randy Weston’s “Berkshire Blues.”