Johnny Griffin from Chicago and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis from New York City dueled with tenor saxophones on many sessions, Live At Minton's being one of the best, but this outing provides a couple of twists to the proceedings. Instead of playing together, they came in separately with Horace Parlan, piano and celeste, Buddy Catlett, bass, and Art Taylor, drums, backing each artist up. The other twist is that other than the title cut; this is an outing of jazz ballad standards.

The session took place in New York City 1962, but the tape languished on a shelf for over forty years. This release does pale when compared to their joint sessions which may have been the reasoning behind performing the ballads. Instead of sparks flying from the two hard bop heavyweights, we get some nice smoldering sides and a chance to compare from song to song their different approach to the ballad style that left me wishing they had each played the same number in succession.

Griffin matches the material better with a fluid delivery of notes. Davis seems to chafe at the bit seeming to want to leap out and just wail from his first truly honking notes on "Midnight Sun". There's a deep down blues spirit behind his playing which gives a greasy smoke filled ambience to his sound. This is then ruined by Horace Parlan on the celeste. I don't know whose idea it was to have Parlan play the celeste and while he plays it well, it just does not work. The outer space wind chimes sound clashes miserably with the more earthy tones of Jaws. Parlan sticks to piano on the Griffin sides to much better results.

Griffin and Davis enthusiasts should definitely check this release out. It comes with four alternative takes; three by Griffin and one by Davis.