Customer Reviews

Summer Afternoon Jazz

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Very nice mellow version of Phil Woods music. Feels rather like one is relaxing on a lazy summer's afternoon listening to good jazz just as mellow as the weather. Not one of Woods top CDs but it is up there and well worth having.

Important note on duplicate releases: This 1977 recording was released on CD in 1998 with its original title (Song for Sisyphus) and cover art, and again in 1999 under a new title (Summer Afternoon Jazz) and different cover art. The tracks are identical. Keep this in mind when shopping for Phil Woods CDs on Amazon. When I accessed the product information for Summer Afternoon Jazz, Amazon's "Better Together" ad urged me to buy both of these CDs. Don't do it unless you want two copies of the same thing.
But be sure you buy at least one copy. This is Phil Woods in his prime, backed up by the same quartet that was with him a year earlier when he won a Grammy award for his double-album set Live From The Showboat. Phil plays the horn the way it was meant to sound in the jazz idiom, rich and full across its whole range and at all dynamic levels. From lush ballads ("Last Night When We Were Young" and "Summer Afternoon") to up-tempo intensity ("Shaw `Nuff") and straight-ahead fun ("Change Partners" and "Monking Business"), that sound, and the technique and style behind it, never falter.
Phil shares the spotlight with his talented sidemen. Pianist Mike Melillo is all alone on "When My Dreams Come True," as is guitarist Harry Leahey on "Nuages."
The album is a bit short at just over 34 minutes, but all eight tracks are keepers.