Sweet Honey Bee
{{Infobox album
| name = Sweet Honey Bee
| type = studio
| artist = Duke Pearson
| cover = Sweet Honey Bee.jpg
| alt =
| released = 1967
| recorded = December 7, 1966
| venue =
| studio = Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
| genre = Jazz
| length = 39:27
| label = Blue Note
BST 84252
| producer = Alfred Lion
| prev_title = Prairie Dog
| prev_year = 1966
| next_title = The Right Touch
| next_year = 1967
}}
{{Album ratings
| rev1 = Allmusic
| rev1Score = {{rating|4|5}}{{cite web |url= http://www.allmusic.com/album/r145315 |title=Sweet Honey Bee – Duke Pearson | AllMusic |first=Scott |last=Yanow |work=allmusic.com |year=2011 |access-date=17 July 2011}}
| rev2 = The Penguin Guide to Jazz
| rev2Score = {{rating|3.5|4}}Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 7th ed. (Penguin, 2004: {{ISBN|978-0-14-101416-6}}).
}}
Sweet Honey Bee is an album by American jazz pianist and composer Duke Pearson, released on the Blue Note label in 1967.[http://www.jazzdisco.org/duke-pearson/catalog/#blue-note-blp-4252 Duke Pearson discography] accessed September 6, 2010 The woman on the cover was Pearson's fiancee Betty.Nat Hentoff, liner notes to Sweet Honey Bee (Blue Note CDP 0777 7 89792 2 7).
Reception
Allmusic awarded the album with 4 stars and its review by Scott Yanow states: "Pianist/composer Duke Pearson leads an all-star group on this run-through of seven of his compositions. The musicians (trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, altoist James Spaulding, Joe Henderson on tenor, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Mickey Roker, and the pianist/leader) are actually more impressive than many of the compositions, although the swinging minor-toned "Big Bertha" deserved to become a standard."Yanow, S.[{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r145315|pure_url=yes}} Allmusic Review: Sweet Honey Bee] accessed 06 June 2010 The Penguin Guide review says: "the highlights are the lushly voiced melodies of 'Sudel' and 'Gaslight', the former a tune which Pearson had recorded some years earlier with a different group. Hubbard and Henderson eat up their solo opportunities without sundering the essentially easy-going feel which was [a] Pearson trademark, and while not all the material is up to this standard, as a showcase for the pianist as writer and group-leader, this is surely the best thing available at present [2004]."
Popular culture
In David Mitchell's novel Ghostwritten, Satoru, a young Japanese jazz-lover working in a record shop in Tokyo, says of a girl who comes into the store, "if you know Duke Pearson's 'After the Rain,' well, she was as beautiful and pure as that."David Mitchell, Ghostwritten (Random House Digital, Inc., 2001: {{ISBN|0375724508}}), p. 41.
Track listing
All compositions by Duke Pearson.
- "Sweet Honey Bee" – 5:00
- "Sudel" – 5:43
- "After the Rain" – 4:45
- "Gaslight" – 6:01
- "Big Bertha" – 5:58
- "Empathy" – 6:00
- "Ready Rudy?" – 6:01
Personnel
- Duke Pearson – piano
- Joe Henderson – tenor saxophone
- Freddie Hubbard – trumpet
- James Spaulding – flute, alto saxophone
- Ron Carter – bass
- Mickey Roker – drums
References
{{reflist}}
{{Duke Pearson}}{{Freddie Hubbard}}
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