This may look like old men’s jazz if you have a look at the musicians involved. But if this is old men’s jazz that sounds so fresh, brilliant and groovy, then what do many young jazz artists wrong. Maybe it’s just the experience that comes with age and long practise. Whatever it is, the musicians involved on this tribute to the late Thad Jones [Benny Golson (tenor saxophone), James Moody (tenor and soprano saxophone), Frank Wess (tenor and alto saxophone, flute), Jimmy Owens (trumpet and fluegelhorn), Bob Brookmeyer (trombone), (Thad’s brother) Hank Jones (piano), Richard Davis (bass), and Mickey Roker (drums)] are incredibly talented and age is just a mere number.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Thad Jones, here’s a short abstract of his biography.
In 1965 Thad and drummer Mel Lewis formed their award-winning jazz orchestra. For the next 13 years this amazing band became an American jazz institution. They played Monday nights at the Village Vanguard in NYC on an almost continuous basis, won countless polls in “Down Beat,” and recorded a series of albums that remain popular today, including “Consummation,” “Central Park North,” “Live At The Village Vanguard” and “Suite For Pops.”
In 1979 Thad moved to and settled in Copenhagen, where he conducted the Danish Radio Big Band and later formed his own Eclipse big band featuring an illustrious mix of players from America and Europe.
[source kendormusic.com]
The record label IPO came up with a good idea when they asked Michael Patterson to adapt Thad Jones’ compositions for this project. What’s so remarkable about this album is the fact that all the musicians aren’t playing together as a regular band but have been gathered just for this project. And yet they sound so tight as a group on this record as if they’ve been playing together for years.
All but one song are compositions by Thad Jones, the exception is Monk’s Mood, which was a favourite of Thad’s and is performed by Hank on piano in an arrangement that Hank learned, note-for-note, directly from Thelonious Monk in the mid-1940s.
There’s another tune here with a fine piano performance, Thad’s famous A Child Is Born, that features a lengthy five minute piano-only introduction by the late Roland Hanna before Jimmy Owens exposes the song’s melody.
Consummation, a tune Thad wrote for a concert performance by Jimmy Owens in 1969, finds said Owens again with an impressive solo performance on this slow, bluesy song.
Of course there are some mid-/uptempo swinging tracks as well like The Farewell, One More, The Waltz You Swang For Me or Bossa Nova Ove that makes this a great varied album.
Definitely one of the best puristic instrumental jazz records this year with more than one hint to the big band sound.
Tracklisting of One More Music Of Thad Jones: 1. Subtle Rebuttal/ 2. Thad’s Pad/ 3. Kids Are Pretty People/ 4. One More/ 5. Mean What You Say/ 6. A Child Is Born/ 7. Bossa Nova Ova/ 8. The Waltz You Swang For Me/ 9. H&T Blues/ 10. Consummation/ 11. The Farewell/ 12. Monk’s Mood | released 2005 by IPO
For more infos visit iporecordings.com.
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