Another delve into the world of post-bebop jazz. To cut to the chase, this album features a track called Stratusfunk. Need I say more? End of review? Add that to the fact that it is on the legendary Impulse! label and I really don't need to say a lot else.
In some ways it reminds me a bit of Miles Davis' Sketches Of Spain (minus the Spanish influence) and his Porgy and Bess, which shouldn't have been a surprise as a quick glance at the sleeves of those two confirms that Gil Evans was responsible for production and orchestration.
This is quite a heavily "orchestrated" example of early 60's Impulse! jazz, but it never sounds over-arranged. It veers between the classic "group" structure of jazz sessions of the time where the basic melody of the tune is played straight for 16 bars or so before the soloists kick in and take us to some other place, before returning at the end to the theme; and the orchestral type stuff of Sketches etc where things get a little heavier and more complex.
The skill is in the way Evans arranges all of this. The fact he has such top notch "raw material" to work with in the shape of such as Jimmy Knepper, Elvin Jones and Ron Carter must have helped enormously, but not only does he end up delivering an album of post-Ellington orchestral brilliance, but he actually takes things further, looking ahead to some of the blissed out grooves of the late 60's Davis' classic work. Jazz excellence, baby.
Out Of The Cool
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