Junior Cook and Blue Mitchell made up the front line of Horace Silver's wildly successful Quintet which between 1958 and 1964 produced such genre defining albums that included Finger Poppin', Blowin' The Blues Away, Horace-Scope, Doin' the Thing, Tokyo Blues, Song For My Father: all masterworks that along with those by the Jazz Messengers defined hard bop in all its glory. This pair of small group albums that Cook and Mitchell taped for Riverside, were in fact by the Silver quintet but with Dolo Coker, Ronnie Matthews or Cedar Walton at the piano. The only other thing missing were a handful of Silver's ear-worm originals. Nevertheless, workouts ‘'Turbo Village’, ‘Blue Farouq’, ‘Dingbat Blues’, ‘Cup Bearers’ were all bang on the money. Strangely enough, it evokes memories of what local heroes were dishing up around this time at The Flamingo! Sensing that Mitchell was a cut above many of his contemporaries, Riverside made him a priority going as far hiring the arranging skills of Benny Golson (3), Tadd Dameron (7) and Jimmy Heath (7) to supply charts for medium side studio ensembles, plus a string section. Sure, throughout Smooth As The Wind and A Sure Thing everyone plays their designated role as expected, but far too many times, it all sounds rather detached.