Face to Face

FACE TO FACE contains two previously unreleased alternate takes.
Personnel: Baby Face Willette (organ); Fred Jackson (tenor saxophone); Grant Green (guitar); Ben Dixin (drums).
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
This is part of Blue Note's Limited Edition Connoisseur series.
Organist Roosevelt "Baby Face" Willette is both a shadowy figure and something of a legend in the 1960s jazz scene. While he played with Blue Note heavyweights Grant Green and Lou Donaldson, he had drifted into obscurity by the '70s. But while on the scene, Willette made some fine music in the soul-jazz vein, and FACE TO FACE (1961) was his debut. Willette's Jimmy Smith-inspired organ pilots a combo of Fred Jackson's tenor and the aforementioned Green's ace guitar through some earnest, tasty, blues-tinged grooves. While it's no masterpiece, fans of soul-jazz should snap up FACE TO FACE while they can.