Album Reviews

The title track is not twice as good as Desmond's surprise jazz “hit” “Take Five,” immortalized on the Time Out album recorded with his regular band mates in the Brubeck quartet, but it has its own serpentine charm, and having Jim Hall comping on guitar instead of Brubeck on piano gives the track a far different, more delicate texture.

This review was but a few words from being finished and a fumbling finger destroyed the whole thing. I hate when that happens! I'm not going to try to reproduce it. Too painful. So let me summarize what I'd written: yes The Four Tops and the other Motown acts were slick and aimed at white America, and the Chess stuff was much hipper, but this was great pop stuff nonetheless.

The concert promoter, tour organizer, record label owner Norman Granz had a knack for assembling groups that produced successful sessions like this. Benny Green's somewhat defensive annotation tells you the story: Webster had been popular during the big band "swing" era as a member of Duke Ellington's band as its first star tenor saxophonist. He was one of the "big three," the others being Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.

Spirit’s 1971 release The 12 Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus (Epic E30267) may be the best Spirit album, and one of the finest albums of the psychedelic and post-psychedelic era, but this, the band’s debut, recorded in 1967, falls not far behind and holds up remarkably well for many reasons.

Spoon’s been at it for more than a decade (their first major label CD, the outstanding A Series of Sneaks) was issued by Elektra in 1998, after which the label promptly dropped them), yet after all of this time, when they played New York’s Roseland recently, front man Britt Daniel announced that this relatively small former dance hall, with a capacity of around 3500 (standing room only) was the largest headlining concert the band had played.

Stars from across the musical universe donated their time and considerable talents to perform with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on this thoroughly entertaining and superbly recorded double LP set celebrating the Hall’s 50th anniversary.