Customer Reviews

Rush Hour

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

 

 

When it comes to jazz cds my collection heavily favors the classic artists like Miles, Trane, Monk, and Mingus. But I would put this recording right up there with any of the heavyweights. Lovano's technique is superb and his range is impressive. Schuller's arrangements of some classic as well as original material is on a par with Gil Evans' collaborations with Miles. Particular favorites here are some of the ballads (Angel Eyes, a great Lovano tenor solo on Chelsea Bridge), and Schuller's "Lament for M" a poignant ode to his late wife. Superb.

There is a great deal of variety on this album, with tunes from Monk, Mingus, Ellington, Coleman and a few standards and originals by Gunther Schuller and Lovano. The settings range from lush scoring for band and strings to Lovano alone. Gunther Schuller's "Rush Hour" is for me the highlight of this set- it's a frantic, 12-tone bop line with some fairly free solos. Also outstanding is the arrangement of Monk's "Crepuscule With Nellie" which manages to capture something of Monk's original quirkiness while still sounding new. This album has a lot to offer, and while some of the tracks are more accessible than others, all are worth repeated listenings.

CAVEAT: Note that if you order this disc "new" at full (expensive) price, you get a CDR. This is a stupid and fairly dishonest policy that should be resisted. I got a used copy much cheaper, in perfect condition, and it was a REAL CD, not a CDR. Don't settle for inferior, impermanent format goods.

Third Stream it might be, at many points, but nostalgic it isn't...it isn't even nostalgic enough to jazz around with facile notions of ersatz avant-gardism. Made at the height of Lovano's powers and popularity, and in the midst of a fairly strong resurgence of popular interest in jazz, this might be one of the small handful of key Blue Note issues of the Nineties, and it's certainly one of the finest mainstream jazz recordings of that decade. Beautiful orchestration and lush recording. There might be more "playerly" small combo blowing dates from Lovano, but I tend to like these conceptual projects with somewhat larger to much larger groups. Lovano is a craftsman even above being an artist, and seems like he never had patience with simple self-aggrandizement (don't let the hats fool you!)...he has the professional's respect for collaborators, and this seems to be an enduring feature of his output for _decades_, however his fortunes/stock might rise or fall. He's a survivor, and a worker.)

[Incidentally, for the neophyte looking for small-combo blowing-intensive dates, FROM THE SOUL or maybe LANDMARKS seem to be early 90s consensus classics, and they are indeed hella good...and lots of people like his almost-chicken-shack quartet with guitarist and crossover sensation John Scofield, which also is very joyful and energetic music, definitely not sellout material----and for the more freeblowing and amorphous and folklike dimension, of course the amazing and longstanding Paul Motian trio with Bill Frisell...perhaps their MOTIAN IN TOKYO would be a smart start? Not sure, too many options there...]