The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 1

The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 1 is a studio album by Fats Navarro and released posthumously by Blue Note Records. Material for the album came from record dates with a variety of musicians including Tadd Dameron, Ernie Henry, Wardell Gray, Charlie Rouse, and Bud Powell.^[1] The music was recorded on three sessions, with one coming from 1947, 1948, and 1949 respectively.^[2]

The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 1
Studio album by Fats Navarro
Released	1957
Recorded	September 26, 1947 October 11, 1948 August 9, 1949
Genre	Bebop
Length	36:07
Label	Blue Note
Fats Navarro chronology
Fats Bud-Klook-Sonny-Kinney (1955) The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 1 (1957) The Fabulous Fats Navarro, Vol. 2 (1957)

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	(crown)[4]

Jazz critic Stephen Cook described Navarro as a "fluid and inventive bebop trumpeter" and considered the album "an essential title for jazz enthusiasts."^[1]

The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album a full 4 stars and a "crown," calling it and its companion volume "one of the peaks of the bebop movement and one of the essential modern-jazz records."^[4]

Critic John Fordham described the two volumes as "essential Navarro, and essential bebop generally, featuring a string of dazzling themes illuminated by the trumpeter's glowing tone."^[5]

Author Tom Piazza stated that the albums "show instantly what set Dameron's work apart," and commented: "Among bebop dates, these were really something special, full of carefully worked-out ensembles, introductions, and codas, yet still with plenty of stretching room for the soloists."^[6]

Saxophonist and writer Benny Green noted Dameron's "ravishing tone" and "precise delivery," and called the recordings "a reminder of the grace of one of the earliest modern pioneers, a grace that was precocious because in the 1940s modernists had still not formulated their own conventions."^[7]

Track listing

All compositions by Tadd Dameron unless otherwise stated

1. "Our Delight" (alternate take) – 3:09
2. "Our Delight" – 3:00
3. "The Squirrel" (alternate take) – 3:22
4. "The Squirrel" – 3:01
5. "The Chase" (alternate take) – 2:59
6. "The Chase" – 2:46
7. "Wail" (alternate take) (Bud Powell) – 2:44^[8]
8. "Bouncing With Bud" (alternate take) (Powell) – 3:16^[8]
9. "Double Talk" (Howard McGhee, Navarro) – 5:35
10. "Dameronia" (alternate take) – 3:15
11. "Dameronia" – 3:00

Personnel

• Fats Navarro – trumpet
• Howard McGhee – trumpet (9)
• Ernie Henry – alto saxophone
• Charlie Rouse – tenor saxophone (1-6, 10–11)
• Sonny Rollins – tenor saxophone (7-8)
• Milt Jackson – vibraphone, piano (9)
• Bud Powell – piano (7-8)
• Tadd Dameron – piano (1-6, 10–11)
• Curley Russell – bass (9)
• Nelson Boyd – bass (1-6, 10–11)
• Tommy Potter – bass (7-8)
• Kenny Clarke – drums (9)
• Roy Haynes – drums (7-8)
• Shadow Wilson – drums (1-6, 10–11)