Giuffre is a great clarinet player and always a challenging vision. A very quirky vision, but opening up great playing, always worth listening to. Guiffre had a thing about trains and the motion, along with the natural flow of the river, like the beat came from nature not man. Jimmy Guiffre: One Score and Eight Horns Ago I’m not a swing-era fan but with a groove like this I could easily become one. The scoring is perfection, a waspish driving beat, the brass section in lockstep swing, a spread of timbres. The lead altoist is often mirrored by the baritone, whilst the inner players of the section, trumpet and trombone, are placed at different intervals, major or minor, creating a dark inner voice. Sometimes in octaves apart unison, sometimes on melody or in counterpoint, and all high energy syncopating like hell, jazz dance. Miles Davis muse, Gil Evans could envisage and score work few else could even imagine, instruments as ingredients in baking a giant glittering confection, marvel at the result.Īssociated with the arranging of West Side Story, baritonist Albam was for a number of years director of the United Artists label Solid State, and enjoyed a long and distinguished career as composer, arranger and educator.īehind the delightful play on words of the title is something of a romp. Tommy Hawk was written for Chet Baker, whose rendition is one of the greatest West Coast jazz pieces ever recorded, here a great arrangement with a payload of great driving solos.
Mandel’s compositions litter the popular Hollywood screen, including M*A*S*H/ Suicide is Painless, and The Sandpiper/ The Shadow Of Your Smile and too many arrangement to mention. And then there is mainstream, big-band jazz dance swing with a modern twist, not out of keeping with Sun Ra in the same year In others it is about unpredictable counterpoint and rhythm, swirling geometry, bewildering changes in direction and unexpected liasons, forsaking the comfort of the mainstream. In some compositions like Mandel’s classic Tommy Hawk, the tune is dominant, heads and choruses armed with exquisitely-layered voices, solo-handovers, and rhythmic propulsion. The more you dig in, the less it is about soloist prowess than the composer’s melodic ideas, scoring various voices in different textures and rhythmic balance. The tunes are generally no more than three minutes, so I’ve selected one for each composer. The album itself is not in greatest shape, a chance find in a French flea-market, VG+ one side, less so the other, but it offers an inexpensive insight into 1956: jazz wondering where to go next. Art Farmer’s warm lyrical solos, with his restrained but fat, fruity tone, is a delightful bonus. The line-up features the under-appreciated alto of Hal McKusick, a sweet, airy voice somewhere between Art Pepper and Paul Desmond, where else? Guitarist Galbraith adds a distinctively different voice scampering over the fretboard to echo the alto. It is comprised of compositions commissioned by Hal McKusick from various composer/arranger leading lights of the day. This album for RCA Victor is the twin of the George Russell Jazz Workshop RCA LPM 2534. Recorded March 3, April 3 – 4, and December 31, 1956.
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