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Royal Flush is a winning hand played by trumpeter Donald Byrd, arguably the best recording date under his leadership.

The opener, Byrd's "Hush," sets the tone for the entire session, which emphasizes uncommon restraint, nuance and subtlety without for an instant losing its soul. An infectious, gospel-inflected blues in C, "Hush" opens with a rhythmic structural pattern that is maintained through each of the solos: eight bars of stop time (in the manner of the Harlem Globetrotters' "Sweet Georgia Brown"), followed by a four-bar shuffle-rhythm trailer. Byrd's minimalist, alternately sly and plaintive solo serves to set the stage for the laconic statements of Pepper Adams' baritone sax and Hancock's piano which, contrary to expectations, reveals not the slightest trace of overplaying on what must have felt like a momentous occasion for the recent college graduate.

"I'm A Fool To Want You," the only standard on the program, is both ballad- and trumpet-playing of the highest order. If it truly was Ava Gardner who elicited from Sinatra the torch song that has frequently been called his most deeply felt performance, she must have had the same impact on Donald Byrd, who turns in the instrumental equivalent of Sinatra's reading, right down to Old Blue's "breathless" phrasing. The trumpeter takes the song through only once, melding extraordinary technique with sensitive musicianship when he employs circular breathing to extend the two most important notes of the bridge, practically effecting the suspension of time at the point where the lyric laments a love lost.– All About Jazz