Customer Reviews

Rite Of Spring

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Years ago, I bought this recording on cassette and just about wore it out. I hadn't thought about Hubert Laws much in recent years until I saw this CD in the bargain bin at a favorite record store and snapped it up immediately.
It doesn't matter if you come to the classics via jazz, or to jazz via the classics, Laws' melding of the two forms IS a classic. CTI issued many great jazz albums in its short life and Rite of Spring stands as one of the best.
I like the CD from start to finish, particularly Laws' take on Pavane and the First and Second Movements of Brandenburg Concerto #3. The music is exquisitely relaxing and surreal, the bassoons behind the flute imbuing the recording with a dreamlike air.
As usual with a CTI recording, the backing musicians form a stellar lineup that includes Bob James, Ron Carter, Gene Bertoncini, and Airto Moreira among others. Only its brevity reduces the rating to four stars as I think it would be better had it been combined with another CTI Hubert Laws masterpiece, the unavailable Afro-Classic.

I first bought the vinyl in 1973 while still a teenager living in the rural South. Never had such music been heard before. Hubert Laws bridged all chasms between genres with The Rite of Spring. A "must have" as proof that jazz did not die in the '70s. Creed Taylor with artists like Hubert Laws kept the flame hot. I am grateful that CBS resurrected the CTI masters.

JP

this was my favorite recording back in the early eighties. i loved it. then i eventually moved on to mainstream jazz, kind of tossing it aside as the years went by.

now i'm listening to it again and i'm re-amazed by it. the 'all-music guide' rating this insignificant and below his other recordings is way off track. i have most of his recordings and this is by far his best.

this is a special recording. i have the lp version. very high audio quality. the first side (the first two songs) is the real substance of the recording.

the music causes you to sit and listen. relaxing, startling, and interesting. this is just some of the best music regardless of genre.

I wouldn't outright call this a fusion album just given the history of jazz artists that made a living building upon previous classical styles. This albums sounds/feels like the title. It's relaxing, easy to listen to, and track 4 features some overdubbing as you hear two floutists (both are Hubert Laws' instrumentation). This CD is perfect for that quiet time that you want, but utilizes the instruments that aren't typical of a concerto (electric piano, guitar, vibraphone???). It's Spring again!!!!---Note, this review was written while listening to the actual CD for the first time.

This work was recorded in June of 1971, and I've owned the album since 1972. 32 years later it remains my favorite. Rare art created by master composers, performed & interpreted by master musicians, and produced & recorded by geniuses in 3 days. It humbles me to this day.

I mainly know Herb Laws through his late 1960s session work on Atlantic with people like Aretha Franklin and The Rascals.

That was until I began to find CTI on vinyl used and inexpensive. Rite Of Spring was one of the first I bought.

This is a very unique album: jazz improvisation with a classical sense of dynamics. Bob James, Jack Dejonette and Ron Carter. among others, back Laws. But this is Laws' album 100%: most of the album consists of his amazing flute playing.


I don't know how much here is planned versus improvised, but the nuanced music behind Laws is rich, full of shadings and shifting textures.

At first I wondered why CTI albums are such a bargain--you pay a mint for a first pressing ABC Impulse. But then I realized I was guilty-I would play an 1960s Coltrane album the minute I got it home but I have albums like Rite Of Spring that sat for years before I got to them. I wonder if there is elitism pertaining to the Coltrane/Avant Gaurde being better than the "fusion" or "streamlined" approach CTI took.

If so, Rite Of Spring and albums like it should go a long way towards erasing that.

Beautiful, beautiful! A jazz version of this wonderful classic. Not the complete symphony, but still worth the listen.

I bought this C.D. after reading a favorable comment in a magazine. Hubert Laws takes a piece of Classical

music and gives it a Jazz twist. It is well done but not for everyone .