Roots

By 1989 George Benson was known for pop and R&B hits, but Tenderly was an acoustic standards date. The drum chair went to Louis Hayes, a hard bop drummer who had been working the same way since the late 1950s.

In 1956, bassist Doug Watkins showed up for what was just another single-day Prestige date, indistinguishable from the dozens of hard-bop sessions he played that year. That session became Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus, now regarded as one of jazz's most enduring records.