Customer Reviews

The Finest Possible Showpiece for a Legend - By: Andrew Oxtoby, 13 Nov 2002
The more snide critic that this album barely qualifies as jazz, but it is the firm framework of Billy Strayhorn's specially commissioned new arrangements (ranging from the reworking of the 1940's hit 'Azure' to the tweaking of the introduction & ensemble passages on 'Jeep's Blues'), that allows Hodges to shine as a soloist comletely unhindered.
The results are spectacular - no manin history has achieved such liquid purity, such languid poise & elegance as Hodges on this album. From the falling first notes of 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore' he is at his best, glissing, bending & swelling as only he could.
He may be superb, but he is run close by the majesty of his old compatriotin the Ellington Band, Laurence Brown, whose trombone lights up Hoagy Carmichael's classic 'Stardust'.
It is the very quality of Strayhorns arrangements that make this album so approachable - many of the classic Ellingtonian discords have disappeared, & the modern idioms that interested Hodgesin the mid 1960's have yet to appear. The result is perfect, easy-listening Jazz majesty - this album is certainly one of the jewels of the known World.