Customer Reviews

Jazz for Moderns

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Jazz for Moderns is a wonderful experience. His use of polyphonic composition in the arrangement of the instruments creates a full and rounded sound between the various horns, the bass and drums. However, the pieces are not dry intellectual exercises, they are moving and filled with emotion.

I am so happy to see that this wonderful music has been reissued.I was in high school in the sixties when I first heard this album. It was in my father's collection. As I was beginning to really explore music I came to realize that my Dad had some pretty unusual stuff. He was a hard core jazzbo with early Duke and Count on 78. One day he and I sat in front of our black and white TV to watch a film that was produced to "illustrate" Don Ellis' new album,"Turkish Bath". I think Don had to be aware of Duane Tatro but took it further into an almost psychadelic realm. Well that got me hooked on the possibilities of big band jazz. As I dug into my father's collection I soon discovered "Music for Moderns".I nearly played that album out, blown away by the cool swing and harmonic textures that had more in common with Stravinsky than Basie.The album is a perfect suite; a mood piece that captures one man's vision of futuristic fusion. If anybody still believes that the fifties were a time of repression then consider Duane Tatro , Chico Hamilton, Stan Kenton, and all the inspiring "classical" music that was being written.

The story between me and this gem is quite long. Once almost ten years ago I saw this unbelievable cover, the coolest of them all in a book that was about the coolest jazz covers of all time. I fell in love with it immediatly. Unfortunatly I did forget the name of the artist and the title so I wasn't able in the years that followed to do researches about this record. Later still some years ago I heard the music contained in this record at a friend's house but I thought was a Kenton's album. I remember I thought it was a fantastic Kenton record maybe the best in his discography but I forgot to ask my friend which Kenton's album was. Present day. Finally I have been lucky enough to see the lovely "Jazz for moderns" cover on a japanese vintage records site and I immediatly recognize it. This time I took note of the title and search it through Amazon hoping that it had been reissued. WOW! OJC Fantasy did it again! I found it here and I immediatly ordered it just for the cover (don't take me for a superficial guy .. sometimes strange are the roads that lead you to the loveliest things ... anyway I know Jazz records so well that I can recognize immediatly the kind of music contained in a record simply looking at its cover, it's not that difficult ... it's an easy thing to do, especially when you already possess 6000 Jazz records). Big has been my surprise when I listened to the sound clips here on Amazon I and found that this record was the one that I loved at my friend's house years ago. I'm really happy finally I have found my way to this record. Because it is SPECTACULAR and extremely original. Some passages have stuck in my mind so firmly that I find myself singing them all the time .. not bad for some obscure short third stream compositions from the fifties!!

The music is an orchestrated "cool" California Orchestra Jazz very near some Kenton, Lennie Niehaus things. Like Kenton's music it has that fifties vision of the future inside it. It's unbelievable. It reminds me (more or less) the music that Gil Fuller wrote in the sixties for Gillespie for a Monterey Jazz Festival that became a marvellous album (Gil Fuller and the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra) unfortunatly no more in print. If you find that record in a used cds store, buy it immediatly!! Tatro's music has some incredible visionary arrangements, adventurous dissonances and harmonies but it does swing! It could be the perfect Jetsons theme! This music is incredibly well written, arranged and played by top west coasters (Shelly Manne is behind the drums for example and Lennie Niehaus is involved too)! It is a masterpiece in Jazz harmonization and writing! I can't say more than this even if I know that some sites reviewed bad this reissue saying this music is dull and boring. I don't agree at all!! Listen the samples to have a clear idea of what this cd is all about!! It is fantastic Jazz! This record is one of the best Jazz record of all the fifties! I love it.

Jazz for ultra - moderns.

If you are one, you'll love Tatro's masterpiece, if you are an old "moldy fig" well ... you have a lot of old stuff to listen! This music will be modern still a thousand years from now!! I can say more than this. This album is a masterpiece.