Search - Red Garland :: Red Alert

How did this get overlooked?

Samuel Chell | 09/25/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On the continuim between elevator music and great jazz you will find Gene Ammons, Stan Getz, Zoot Simms, Stanly Turrentine and Art pepper on both ends -- all of them capable of hard swinging as well as flaccid popular garbage. Howard Land, the featured sax player here, seems able to exploit the softer sounds of jazz without ever slipping away from the raspy blues idiom into Gershwin mushy goo. This CD is a perfect example of how to maintain swinging soul in every context: blues, ballad and bop. And don't forget about the rhythem section -- one of the best ever."

A curiosity with the familiar Garland touch

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 02/15/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"No pianist commanded more respect and attracted more imitators than Red Garland during his tenure with Miles and Coltrane in the 1950's. His influence was equally apparent in the best-selling trio albums issued under his name in the early 1960's.



By the late 1960's most mainstream musicians were being drowned out and were all but forgotten during the dismal disco days of the 1970's. On this late l977 recording Red demonstrates that although the music, along with the volume levels, had changed, he hadn't. His playing is as impeccable as ever, all the more remarkable for its lack of straining at a time when the few older guys who were still working had "plugged in."



That said, it must be admitted that this is a pretty flat, uninspired meeting of major players. If there's anything close to a "surprise," it's the playing of the amazing multi-instrumentalist Ira Sullivan, who sticks to tenor sax yet doesn't yield an inch to his counterpart, tenor giant Harold Land. Red seems content to turn the repertory over to his side men, including two unmemorable originals by Nat Adderley (although Nat's "Red Alert" is as good an excuse as any for jamming on a Bb blues).



Characteristic of every recording made during this time, Ron Carter's bass is overly amplified while Frank Butler (I honestly can't think of a more underrated and underrecorded drummer in jazz) is sentenced to the background--a mix that contributes to the session's overall feeling of dryness if not sterility. Nonetheless, if you're a Garland or Ira fan, you probably ought to add this one to your shopping list."