muzycy:
Dizzy Reece – trumpet
Joe Farrell – tenor saxophone, flute
Cecil Payne – baritone saxophone
Hank Jones – piano
Ron Carter – bass
Charlie Persip – drums
Editor's info
Jamaican-born jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece recorded one of his best opus in 1962. Released on the New Jazz label the album featured greats such as bassist Ron Carter, renowned saxophonist Cecil Payne and pianist Hank Jones. It’s a beautifully recorded and sequenced album, the compositions reflecting Reece’s interest in the music of the Asian continent and regions of North Africa, with each piece transitioning nicely into the next. Asia Minor would be the last session Reece would lead until 1967/68. A fixture of the European jazz scene of the Fifties, Reece came to New York in 1959. This intriguing, Eastern-flavored date, is still regarded has one of the best example of cross-pollination in the jazz genre.
Contemporaneous reviews of Asia Minor were positive, with the Jazz Journal describing it as "modern jazz at a high level".
Critical reflections of the album since its release have often concluded that it was Reece's finest session of the period and a "masterpiece".
A review by Scott Yanow for AllMusic awarded the album 4½ stars and stated: "The solos tend to be concise but quite meaningful, and, overall, this hard bop but occasionally surprising session is quite memorable".