Word: albums
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...singing Puccini (a palpable falsehood). Consequently, Sir Adrian has ripped Handel's oratoria from its century, making it as operatic and as nineteenth-century as he can. The result is a sprawling, unkempt orchestra, bawling, dyspeptic singers, and crawling, inept tempos. (London A 4357--you'll recognize the album by the ugly crucifix on its cover...
Ireland, said Sheridan, is the land of happy wars and sad love songs. So we are informed, at any rate, by one of the singers on a Columbia album called "A SPONTANEOUS RECORDING!" The spontaneous performance is given by the Clancy Brothers (Tom, Pat, and Liam), Tommy Makem, Pete Seeger (on banjo), Bruce Langhorne (on guitar), and what is described as "a 200-voice singing audience." The audience is not omnipresent, and all of the songs (like all Irish songs, I'm convinced) have the gift o' th' gab. The performers, too, are ebullient, effervescent, and effusive, a welcome change...
Finally, I will mention a few albums by local folksingers. Joan Baez has been well-promoted in Cambridge. She has, in addition to her first release on the Veritas label, two records on Vanguard. Baez has a staggeringly beautiful voice. Her rendition of "Old Blue" on her latest Vanguard release is also excellent for checking up on the distortion of your phono-cartridge. Theodore Alevizos, a former WHRB Balladeer, has a wonderful recording of Greek folksongs on Prestige International, whereon he is accompanied by Rolf Cahn and Susan Alevizos. Rolf Cahn and Eric Von Schmidt have an album on Folkways...
...sterile change-running of the neo-boppers is on the other, and least there's a lesson in that. But almost without exception his short, dense lines mark him as one of the great jazz composers of all time. Atlantic 1317 is generally conceded to be his finest album...
...arrangers in the jazz of the past few years only one name need be mentioned: Gil Evans. His gifts go far beyond mere orchestration, as the Porgy and Bess album with Miles, or his own band on Impulse A-4 reveal. Bill Russo is an equally talented writer for large ensembles, a lonely figure who deeply believes that seriousness and self-conscious composing can be brought to jazz material. I strongly recommend The World of Alcina (Atlantic 1241) and School of Rebellion (Roulette 52063) if you are willing to listen carefully and then re-listen. The same might be said...