The Lonely One

In 1941 the room where the new rhythm was being assembled was not being documented by any record company — the discs were cut by a customer who carried his own portable recorder into Minton's. That is the only reason we can hear Kenny Clarke, the house drummer, as he played then: the amateur recordings surfaced sixteen years later as Jazz Immortal - After Hours Monroe's Harlem Mintons (1957).

Percy Heath is remembered as the bassist anchoring the Modern Jazz Quartet, but before he ever picked up an instrument he trained as a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. The war ended before he saw combat; back home, urged by his brothers, he picked up the bass instead — the same hands heard here on the 1954 session for Roses Of Picardy.