Are You Real?

The Jazz Messengers: Benny Golson (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Bobby Timmons (piano), Jymie Merritt (bass) and Art Blakey (drums). From the album Moanin’ (1959).

Bennie Golson is an American tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger who plays in the bebop and hard bop styles. He started playing while still in high school and after graduation joined a rhythm and blues band. From 1953 to 1959 he played with the Tadd Dameron’s group and in the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie. After that he participated in the Jazz Messengers and founded The Jazztet with trompetist Art Farmer in 1959.

Many of his songs have become jazz standards, like “Killer Joe”, “Stablemates”, “Whisper Not”, “Alone Came Betty”, “Are You Real?” and “Blues March”. After leaving The Jazztet in 1962 he stopped playing jazz and worked as a studio musician and with orchestras, in addition to composing music for television and other musicians. In the mid-1970s he played and record jazz again and in 1982 he returned to form The Jazztet.

This is a medium tempo lively theme. Golson performs his solo with quick and incisive phrases, but Morgan’s is more melodic and moderated. Timmons makes a solo full of vitality, and while he’s playing, Golson and Morgan make a sound mattress underneath. Morgan then exchanges four-bars solos with Blakey, then Golson and then Timmons. Suddenly Merritt appears wanting to participate with his double bass, and finally the group plays the re-exposure of the theme.