Harold Land: The Fox

This may be the hottest hard-bop track ever recorded on the West Coast. Butler drives a blistering tempo at close to 400 beats per minute. At this pace, Elmo Hopes chart is almost impossible to play. Yet the band clings together for dear life and charges ahead fearlessly. Land, who helped define the hard bop sound while with the Brown-Roach Quintet, offers up one of his most driving recorded solos. But then comes Dupree on trumpet sounding like the Angel Gabriel announcing Judgment Day. On the Scoville intensity chart for jazz solos, this one ranks somewhere north of the habañero. Can you play hotter than this? Not without melting the grooves on your LP.