"Spellbound" is the title track of Clifford Jordan's 1960 Riverside album, an extended performance featuring solos from all three melodic voices in the quartet. Jordan leads with three choruses of tenor saxophone over his own 36-bar composition in B-flat at a medium-up tempo, his improvisation building with the patient logic that characterized the best hard bop soloists. Cedar Walton matches Jordan with three piano choruses of his own, his playing already showing the rhythmic acuity and harmonic imagination that would make him one of jazz's most sought-after sidemen. Bassist Spanky DeBrest takes a single chorus, his arco and pizzicato work adding textural variety to the performance. The 36-bar form gives each soloist an expansive canvas, the unusual length creating a sense of compositional spaciousness. Drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath provides the kind of responsive, interactive drumming that defines the hard bop aesthetic, his playing adjusting to each soloist's individual rhythmic character. Spellbound as both composition and album demonstrates Jordan's potential as a leader, a role he would continue to develop throughout a career that extended into the 1990s.
