The tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin first received national notice in a Charles Mingus group of the late 1950s. He came into his own during the Sixties in a series of albums for Prestige. The third of those collections, The Blues Book, defines Ervin's musical center. A Texan with all the traditional attributes of the best Texas tenors, he was immersed in the blues and they permeated everything he played. Here, he luxuriates in the variety and purity of the form, from the minor mysteries of "Eerie Dearie" to the fundamentals of "No Booze Blooze." Among his companions is the highly regarded young trumpeter Carmell Jones.

with Carmell Jones, Gildo Mahones, Richard Davis, Alan Dawson