Sweet Honey Bee

Reception

Allmusic awarded the album with 4 stars and its review by Scott Yanow states: "Pianist/composer Duke Pearson leads an all-star group on this run-through of seven of his compositions. The musicians (trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, altoist James Spaulding, Joe Henderson on tenor, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Mickey Roker, and the pianist/leader) are actually more impressive than many of the compositions, although the swinging minor-toned "Big Bertha" deserved to become a standard." The Penguin Guide review says: "the highlights are the lushly voiced melodies of 'Sudel' and 'Gaslight', the former a tune which Pearson had recorded some years earlier with a different group. Hubbard and Henderson eat up their solo opportunities without sundering the essentially easy-going feel which was [a] Pearson trademark, and while not all the material is up to this standard, as a showcase for the pianist as writer and group-leader, this is surely the best thing available at present [2004]."

Popular culture

In David Mitchell's novel Ghostwritten, Satoru, a young Japanese jazz-lover working in a record shop in Tokyo, says of a girl who comes into the store, "if you know Duke Pearson's 'After the Rain,' well, she was as beautiful and pure as that."

Track listing

All compositions by Duke Pearson except where noted.

1. "Sweet Honey Bee" – 5:00
2. "Sudel" – 5:43
3. "After the Rain" – 4:45
4. "Gaslight" – 6:01
5. "Big Bertha" (Peter Chatman, Pearson) – 5:58
6. "Empathy" – 6:00
7. "Ready Rudy?" – 6:01

Personnel