Customer Reviews

Tales of a Courtesan: Oirantan

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I have been looking for the CD version of this album for a mighty long time. Never thought of going on line for it... ah well, old dog, new trick, I guess... I am about to order this record and am looking, quite fondly, at the jacket of my old, now noisy LP, and read the copyright as 1976. Time does fly! And the music on this album also! To me, when I first heard it after buying it based on a good writeup in Stereo Review (it won an album of the year award from that publication) I could not believe that big bands did not have to sound like they did in the '40s (don't get me wrong, I appreciate older styles of music and am not putting anyone down). This album swings but with a drive that I find irresistable. The musicianship is top rate, the arrangements have drive and the East meets West (or vice versa, maybe) quality is not a simple gimmick. With apologies to Ken Burns, jazz is universal: it may be a gift from America (probably the greatest, although I hesitate on that point between blues and its seminal character and jazz with its myriad facets) but people all over the map listen to it, a good number play it and, some, like Toshiko Akioshi brillantly. It's great that she came to America, met Lew Tabackin and formed that band. The twenty-five years since this record's release only serves to make me appreciate this album more. Go ahead, get it, put it in the machine, turn up the volume and sit back; you'll wind up in a different place.

Excellent CD. A treasure of jazz music. Arrived in excellent condition. All who enjoy jazz should listen to this CD.

Were I forced to choose between this one and "Kogan" among Toshiko's remarkable big band recordings for RCA, it would be a tough call. This one shows off perhaps a bit more of Lew Tabackin's virtuosity as a driving, Rollins-inspired tenorist but also as a killer flautist (especially on the title cut, on which he virtually becomes the subtle, complex, and conflicted courtesan).

But you no longer have to choose. For little more than the cost of this import, you can pick up both "Tales of a Courtesan" and "Kogan" along with several additional sessions the brilliant pianist-composer-conductor made for RCA (including her masterwork, "Minemata"). They're all included in the recent Mosaic Box Set, but best not to linger. It's in a limited edition (about 5,000 copies), and for at least some of these historic collections (though in this case the music is especially timeless) those finite copies disappear in a hurry. Besides Toshiko and Tabackin and arguably the best big band of its time, "Tales" features distinguished solo work by trombonist Britt Woodman, trumpeter Bobby Shew, saxophonist Bill Perkins, and a rhythm section that cooks up a storm with no gratuitous help from the sound engineer.