A fine pianist whose chord voicings are a little reminiscent of Red Garland, Richard Wyands has spent most of his career as a sideman. He started working in local clubs when he was 16, graduated from San Francisco State College, and gained experience playing in the San Francisco Bay area. Wyands, who was a sideman on a few early dates for Fantasy, spent time accompanying Ella Fitzgerald (1956) and Carmen McRae. He moved to New York in 1958, where he played with Roy Haynes, Charles Mingus (1959), Gigi Gryce's quintet, Oliver Nelson, Etta Jones, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Gene Ammons, among others. Wyands was associated with Kenny Burrell, with whom he toured extensively during 1964-1977, and has played with many other top musicians, including Freddie Hubbard, Zoot Sims, Frank Foster, the Illinois Jacquet Big Band, Benny Carter, Ernie Andrews, and Milt Hinton, among others. On this recording for Venus, Wyands heads his own trio with Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums.

Posterity remembers Oliver Nelson primarily as an arranger/conductor. When he first began to attract attention with a series of albums for Prestige and its subsidiaries, however, Nelson was hailed as a versatile leader of small groups and a composer/instrumentalist who could refresh the music’s traditional verities while also looking ahead. There is no better showcase for these skills among his initial sessions than "Screamin’ the Blues", a rousing set of funky modernism interpreted by a sextet of players who shared Nelson’s allegiance to both virtuosity and vision.

Oliver Nelson meets Eric Dolphy on this frequently exciting sextet session with trumpeter Richard Williams, pianist Richard Wyands, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Roy Haynes. Although Dolphy is too unique and skilled to be overshadowed in a setting such as this, Nelson holds his own. He contributed five of the six compositions (including "Screamin' the Blues," "The Meetin'," and "Alto-Itis") and effectively matches wits and creative ideas with Dolphy. This edition is a part of the ultimate audiophile Prestige Stereo reissues from Analogue Productions - 25 of the most collectible, rarest, most audiophile-sounding Rudy Van Gelder recordings ever made.

This was Etta Jones' first album for Prestige Records when it was originally released in 1960 (having been recorded in a single session), and although Jones had been releasing records since 1944, she was treated as an overnight sensation when the title tune from the album went gold, hitting the Top 40 on the pop charts and reaching number five on the R&B charts. The album was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.