This album offers a slight departure from the usual Horace Parlan Trio fair of straight blues and bop due to the presence of the great conga player Ray Barretto.
Barretto can be heard to excellent advantage on the title track, "Headin' South" and his original composition, "Congalegre." South is latin all the way while Congalegre is latin only on the intro and exit melody with straight four improv in between. Nevertheless, Barretto has a great solo on Congalegre and contributes throughout the album in his usual tasteful way. He sits out on a couple of selections.
This album is also notable for some rare arco work by bassist George Tucker on the powerful and moody "Summertime." Very nice interpretation of this chestnut.
This is pretty much typical Parlan with his often obtuse improvs, leaving you hanging just long enough to bring you back down with some of his full, bluesy chord work. There is a nice mix of tunes on this album with "Low Down" being a slow ballad, and "The Song is Ended" a medium swinger.
I've always appreciated Parlan more as an accompanist than even as the fine soloist he is. I don't think there was a better rhythm section ever than Parlan, Tucker and Harewood for driving a horn front line. Don't believe me? just check out the Blue Note albums with the Turrentine brothers and Dexter Gordon's "Doin' Allright" album.
The album was recorded in typical Van Gelder fashion with the piano and bass in the center, drums on the right and in this case, congas on the left.
Being a Japanese release, you get reproductions of the original liner jacket in both English and Japanese and that's it. Overall, this is a nice, varied program that should be of particular interest to both Parlan and Barretto fans.
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