4.0 out of 5 stars
Crisp arranging; Clean guitar work., June 22, 2008
This review is from: Mr.Lucky/Untouchables & 6 Other TV Actio (Audio CD)
Sometime ago -- when New York City still had a few dirt roads -- my piano teacher gave me a $1.98 monaural copy of this old RCA Camden for Xmas. Nice of her; if only by default, she knew what she was doing. Ergo, I was delighted when -- 40 years later -- the Japanese, God bless 'em, gave this 'the treatment'. My system & ears keep telling me their processing leads domestic efforts by about 6 years (K2 20 bit in this case). At the time, I was under the thrall of the quaint notion that the Ventures were good guitarists, so Mundell Lowe was a revelation. (Not to mention the blistering, powerful bass work by George Duvivier, Eddie Costa in attack mode on piano & Clark Terry, who seemed to be able to laugh with a trumpet).
These are 8 very different arrangements of then-commercial TV themes derived from assorted shows about cops & private dicks. It's a short recording, but so well done it's worth the money. A great deal of pop music turns into an embarrassment 5 minutes after it was recorded, whereas good jazz doesn't seem to 'date' nearly so badly. 'The Detectives' still catches my ear; originally a bombastic march introducing the forgettable, red-baiting star Robert Taylor, Lowe turned it into a ballad (so THAT'S what a nice hollow-body sounds like -- to Hell with the Ventures).
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