Meeting [Import]

Jackie McLean, Jackie Mclean & Dexter Gordon | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 11, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Video Arts
• ASIN: B00006JL9L
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,812,218 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Introduction by Jackie McLean

2. All Clean

3. Rue de La Harpe

4. Callin'

5. Sunset

6. On the Trail

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magic Meeting, September 19, 2008

By 

Crowhurst (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Meeting (Audio CD)

Recorded live in Denmark in 1973 and released in two volumes this is a magic meeting between two great horn masters in joyous spirits. Dex and Mac are hugely inspired in each other's company and the rhythm section headed by Kenny Drew swings with reckless abandon. Sparks are flying. Just too good to miss.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is there a volume 2?, April 25, 2008

By 

A Music Fan (san jose, costa rica) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Meeting (Audio CD)

I've had this disc in my collection for quite a few years now and have always wondered about the "Vol 1" on the reproduced LP jacket. It implies a "Vol 2" but if there ever was a second LP it has apparently never been reissued on CD. Volume 1 certainly leaves at least this listener yearning for more.

Indeed, it's passing strange to me that this gem has remained uncommented on by any of Amazon's discerning jazz reviewers (Samuel Chell? Michael Richman? Douglas Negley?) given the the line-up alone. J-Mac, the Long Tall one and a top flight rhythm section of long time Mclean associate Kenny Drew and the Danish duo of Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and Alex Riel.

It's a live session, recorded in Copenhagen's fabled Jazzhuz, and the set is a generous one of five cuts (one composition by Gordon, two by Drew, one by Sahib Shahib and a version of the Ferde Grofe chesnut "On the Trail" from the Grand Canyon Suite that is as "right"--thanks especially to Dex's always delightful sense of humor--as it is unexpected. (Even if Riel does indulge in a bit of the percussionistic bombast that occasionally drove another notable expat saxman, Brew Moore, up the wall.)

My personal favorite is a haunting Drew composition entitled "Sunset" in which the two reed players really stretch out, complementing each other beautifully. No Stitt-Ammons-Gray-Griffin cutting session this, but in its own way every bit as absorbing. Memorably empathetic music-making and I never tire listening to their respectful and affectionate interplay. Two giants at the very top of their games!

4.0 out of 5 stars Plain but accurate title--no cutting session., February 7, 2010

By 

Samuel Chell (Kenosha,, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Meeting (Audio CD)

Despite the competitive nature of both players (and Dexter could hang with the best of them--Stitt, Ammons, Jaws--and win, if only for his advanced harmonic conceptions), this is a meeting of two of jazz' more distinctive, inimitable voices, neither one of which has anything to prove to the other. Dexter at this time was making sporadic appearances in the States while living in Denmark and playing in Paris. Soon he would enjoy a mighty resurgence (at least his second major one), and by 1980 he could return to the States like a conquering champion, leader of his own tight rhythm section, honored by many as the most creative living improvisor in the music and, despite the obvious decline in his playing abilities by the mid-80s, he would go out a movie star (!) of arguably the best feature film ever made about jazz, "Round Midnight."

The big question might be: how will these two match up, especially tonally? Dexter, the indisputable jazz giant with a slow vibrato to go along with a lightning-fast allusive mind and penchant for the apt musical quotation, and with a style so deliberative that each note is like a dagger aimed directly at the listener's heart; McClean, the near-giant, with a distinctive "sour" sound (some musicians have said he played intentionally sharp; others have called his intonation a hair flat).

The answer is, of course, that the pair match up especially well, though to my biased ears the sound of Dexter's tenor is the more welcome one on practically all of the exchanges.

The rhythm section, though possibly unfamiliar to Stateside listeners, is first rate. Alex Riel is a drummer whom Bill Evans frequently used on his European tours, and Niels Pederson may be the best non-American bassist of all time. Kenny Drew was one of the top 3-4 Bud disciples, whose son would maintain the flame. This team keeps the boiler-room cooking for the distance, offering plenty of music worthy of the listener's attention even apart from the two principals.