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Jazz Alley From Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker to the new greats of today, this is the place for Jazz! |
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Jazz Alley From Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker to the new greats of today, this is the place for Jazz! |
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In Reply to: Starting the week off gently with Kenny Burrell posted by G Squared on June 26, 2023 at 05:50:11:
Here's a previous review by me:
Kenny Burrell: Guitar Forms (1965)
This recording is be-bop guitarist Kenny Burrell's (b. 1931) orchestral collaboration with arranger and conductor Gil Evans, the same Gil Evans of Miles Davis Sketches of Spain fame. Creed Taylor (later of CTI, the crossover label that so many loved to hate) produced; Rudy van Gelder was the recording engineer.
Session players included Lee Konitz (saxophone) and Bill Barber (tuba) (both of whom had played in the Birth of the Cool live performances that were recorded, as well as in the actual Birth of the Cool recording sessions). Also, Ron Carter (upright bass) and Elvin Jones (the drummer on John Coltrane's A Love Supreme). Whew!
To say that Guitar Forms is Kenny Burrell's orchestral collaboration with Gil Evans is perhaps a bit of an overstatement. Five of the album's nine tracks are orchestral settings, but three are small-combo jazz; and one piece, a Gershwin Prelude, is for solo guitar.
And (best Claude Rains voice) you are shocked, shocked! that once again, here we have yet another guitarist who stated that his chief influences were Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. You are shocked.
Burrell made his recording début as a member of a Dizzy Gillespie sextet. That was before he had finished college. In short order, he was touring with Oscar Peterson and recording with Billie Holiday. Duke Ellington called Burrell his favorite guitar player. B.B. King said the same. For most of his career, Burrell played a Gibson Super 400 arch-top hollow-body electric jazz guitar with humbucking pickups.
For me, the most memorable Guitar Forms track of all is Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg's "Last Night When We Were Young," on which Burrell plays classical guitar. There is a brief orchestral introduction, but it dies out. Burrell's classical guitar then enters, solo. An electrifying moment!
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Follow Ups
- His album "Guitar Forms" is for the Ages. - John Marks 15:16:23 06/26/23 (2)
- RE: His album "Guitar Forms" is for the Ages. - Tom 08:54:54 06/27/23 (1)
- Another guitar+arranger... - andy evans 13:37:59 06/27/23 (0)
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