Recorded on this date in 1957
Clark Terry was thirty-six and still playing in Duke Ellington’s orchestra when he made this record for Riverside. He was moonlighting as a leader, and the quintet he assembled was ridiculous — Johnny Griffin on tenor, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. That rhythm section was the engine behind Miles Davis at exactly the same moment. Griffin was tearing through the New York scene with a ferocity that would soon make him a household name among jazz listeners. Terry chose eight tracks that let everyone stretch out, from bebop standards like “Donna Lee” to his own quirky original compositions. The title track “Serenade To A Bus Seat” sounds like exactly what it is — Terry’s wry tribute to life on the road, touring city to city. But somehow this album never got the attention it deserved. Maybe it came out at the wrong moment, right in the middle of the hard bop explosion when every label was flooding the market. Riverside folded a few years later, and the record disappeared.
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