Customer Reviews

Lulu's Back in Town

5 star:		(3)
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This is one of Mel's best examples of his Art with Superb Marty Paich arrangements. The personell are all top-notch West-Coast musicians of the period, and demonstrate their skills when handling the Charts or Solo's accordingly! The additional Bonus is the Newly discovered Stereo tapes to give these performances an added Dimension!

I previously mentioned the Discovery of Stereo Tapes. I was misinformed, and this release is in the Original Mono. Great sound and performances nevertheless. Apologies for unintentionally misleading anyone.

This session deserves to be as popular as the Beach Boys. It represents the "cool" West Coast jazz sound at its creative best--complex yet light, tight, and perpetually fresh. Marty Paich's arrangements serve less as background accompaniment than as a luminous foil to the equally inventive elocutions of the singer. If there's a better solution to the challenge of balancing ensemble cohesiveness with individual expressiveness, I haven't heard it.

As for Mel, there's admittedly less "personality" than on his later sessions, but the gain is a concentrated focus on the song performances--twelve "art objects," each representing the very best that could be squeezed out of composer, arranger, instrumentalists, and vocalist at a given moment. Thinking of Rossetti's description of the sonnet as a "moment's monument," it may be no exaggeration to regard this recording as a monumental achievement. In any case, I'm tickled to have made its discovery, however late.