Music Monday: Johnny Coles

It’s Monday, right? I drove from Wilmington, Delaware to Jacksonville, Florida yesterday which was overall pretty pleasant (except South Carolina). I was able to get in some quality listening on my drive and enjoy 12 innings of borderline comical Phillies baseball. This is not a baseball or travel blog (you’re lucky South Carolina!), but it is Monday and that means music Monday. On my drive, I listened to three Johnny Coles albums. Coles is an underrated (and by the standards of the day, unrecorded) Philadelphia trumpet player. He spent most of his life playing in various big bands (Gil Evans, Mingus, and various 1970s iterations of Duke’s and Count Bassie’s ensembles). During that time he recorded a few very solid hard bop outings that are worth hearing (if hard bop is your thing). Kenny Drew does some nice work with Coles on his 1961 debut, The Warm Sound: For some reason I didn’t listen to his Blue Note album, Little Johnny C, but it’s on the list! A decade later, Coles recorded…