Ok, so it's only early March and NYE is a long way away but if this isn't in my shake-up for the CD of the Year then I'll buy a banjo!
Memo to music colleges - this is how it's done!
Gil Evans - if Duke is Beethoven then Gil is Berlioz.
Recorded May last year at New York's Jazz Standard club Ryan Truesdell assembled an ensemble that does the utmost credit to the work of, arguably, jazz's greatest modern composer/arranger.
Many of the arrangements were originally written for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra as well as some from Evans' own 1959 classic album Great Jazz Standards. The Thornhill arrangements remind us how forward thinking that band was, like Boyd Raeburn, ahead of its time. The later ones (1960s) include possibly the best version of Davenport Blues since Bix. Mat Jodrell does the honours. Steve Wilson's Just One of Those Things is much more than that! Wendy Gilles vocal on Can't We Talk it Over has just the smoky ambiance that song requires, contrasting with her perky vocal on Sunday Drivin' - Wendy can Sunday drive with me any time!
If you only buy two albums this year make sure this is both of them!
Lance.
Available March 17 on Bluenote/Artistshare label.
Jesse Han, Jessica Aura Taskov, Steve Kenyon, Steve Wilson, Dave Pietro, Donny McCaslin, Scott Robinson, Brian Landrus, Tom Christensen, Aiden Banta (woodwinds); Adam Unsworth, David Peel (Fr. horn); Augie Haas, Greg Gisbert, Mat Jodrell (tpts); Ryan Keberle, Marshall Gilkes, George Flynn (tmb); Marcus Rojas (tuba); James Chirillo (gtr); Frank Kimbrough (pno); Jay Anderson (bs); Lewis Nash (dms); Wendy Gilles (voice); Lois Martin (viola).
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