Customer Reviews

Presents a Concert of Contemporary Music

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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great solo work by the underrated Lucky Thompson,plus Jay Jay Johnson, Stan Getz, Aaron Sachs and Tony Scott makes this album a joy to behold. The quasi classical pieces composed and/or arranged by Gunther Schuller and John Lewis feature rather stiff ensemble playing and harp strumming but these shortcomings are easily overcome by the sloists. Thompson's solo on Django has to rank among the greatest ever recorded, Stan Getz is his usual lyrical self while Jay Jay excels for his logic and clarity. A beautiful album of the fifties.

great solo work by the underrated Lucky Thompson,plus Jay Jay Johnson, Stan Getz, Aaron Sachs and Tony Scott makes this album a joy to behold. The quasi classical pieces composed and/or arranged by Gunther Schuller and John Lewis feature rather stiff ensemble playing and harp strumming but these shortcomings are easily overcome by the soloists. Thompson's solo on Django has to rank among the greatest ever recorded, Stan Getz is his usual lyrical self while Jay Jay excels for his logic and clarity. A beautiful album of the fifties.

The superb solos, wonderful compositions, and lovely sound vs. stiffness in the rhythm section are a given to be dealt with in this beautiful recording. Get past that, and you will love this. As your previous reviewers have noted, Lucky Thompson was one of the most under-appreciated of Jazz soloists. He is at his best here, playing on three of the 5 tracks. Lewis' delightfully melodic writing provides perfect settings for Thompson's highly personal inventions. He plays sophisticated 'theme and variations' within his own solos here, as he did on "Walkin'" with Miles, recorded in April 1954, just a year earlier. Every one of his solos is a surprise and a delight. But Thompson is not the only star: Aaron Sachs, less well-known than Thompson, plays wonderfully, getting a longer solo on 'Django' than the others do. JJ fascinates as always with his very personal vocabulary, feeling and logic. Getz brought his beautiful sound to two of these pieces, and Tony Scott plays very well on the same two. The small orchestra accompaniments to the soloists on 'The Queen's Fancy' and 'Django' were adapted by Gunther Schuller from John Lewis' piano comping on the original MJQ versions of these tunes. Every piece has multiple highlights as noted, but there's a section in 'Midsommer' in which Getz first and then Scott join JJ to become a duet and then a trio over a decending chord pattern that can only be called etherial. Ever since "The Modern Jazz Society" appeared on Lp in 1954, I've loved the following remark from John Lewis' original notes. Speaking of the cooking 'Little David's Fugue', he says, "The expositions are written while the episodes are improvised" -- pretty much true of life as well.
Caveat: a serious mistake was made here when they included rehearsal takes of 'The Queen's Fancy', 'Midsommer' and 'Turnpike', a piece said to be by JJ, when it is, in fact, 'Thelonious' by Monk. Skip 'em.

This group is connected to the mellow 1955-57 years, whereby mellow . . . not being yellow . . . is indeed not all that bad. This is a nice blend of jazz, but on the more quiet side than not. The booklet included in the cardboard packet offers little more than a nice informative 1999 rendition by Gunther Schuller of that effort that this group put together back in 1955. Overall, this is a nice musical effort at something a little different. While the Verve Elite Edition CD is a bit expensive, you could do much worse if you passed it by.

The music of the Modern jazz society is for me the best of jazz I ever heard It is emotion "pur sang" I had to wait a long time before I could buy it but now I am more than glad I have it.