A key player in the development of bebop, Roy Eldridge was one of the first trumpet players in jazz to break away from the smooth, lyrical style of Louis Armstrong, and develop a faster pace and a more versatile delivery. Critic Gary Giddins described Eldridge as having a "flashy, passionate, many-noted style that rampaged freely through three octaves, rich with harmonic ideas impervious to the fastest tempos". His playing influenced an entire generation of jazz musicians, many of whom would go on to become leading players in their own right, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Howard McGhee and Fats Navarro. Eldridge would also appear alongside, and record with, a considerable number of these performers. With a long and much-celebrated recording career, it was the albums he made, or contributed to, for Verve Records that arguably feature his finest work, particularly those made towards the end of the 1950s and the dawn of the ‘60s.
