Over the years I’ve noticed that Daily Vault Founder Christopher
\nThelen and I invariably open our jazz reviews with the same “I have
\nno idea what the hell I’m talking about here” mea culpa. And the
\ntruth is, we don’t – it’s one of the handicaps of growing up
\nsuburban white bread in the years spanning 1975 to 1990. Jazz
\nsimply wasn’t part of our teenaged musical vocabulary.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, that has not prevented me in my adult years from
\nenjoying fabulous jazz albums like
\nSwiss Movement<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Les McCann arrived at the 1969 Montreux Jazz festival in
\nSwitzerland as a pianist and bandleader with a reputation for
\nsoulful, funk-infused jazz. For his part, Eddie Harris was already
\nwell-known for his rippling, eloquent sax phrasings. Their
\nimpromptu teaming at the festival, joined by noted trumpeter Benny
\nBailey, generated one of the great live jazz albums of its day, an
\nall-to-brief set of five tracks that simply bubbles and froths with
\nthe pure joy of playing.<\/p>\n
It’s amusing now to have “Compared To What” plastered across the
\nairwaves as part of Coke’s latest advertising campaign, but if you
\nwant the *real* real thing, you have to come here for it. McCann’s
\ntake on it, besides featuring the only vocals on this album, is
\nsimply smoking-hot. Never mind the dated ’60s lyrics; in McCann and
\nHarris’ hands, this thing has a groove you could drive a truck
\nthrough, and Harris and Bailey’s horns wail triumphantly between
\nits choruses.<\/p>\n
Harris and especially Bailey shine even brighter on “Cold Duck
\nTime,” a Harris composition the band literally learned the day of
\nthe show. The smooth swing of the basic melody doesn’t take long to
\ndevolve into dueling solos, Harris’ sax alternately juking and
\nsoaring before Bailey comes in and simply blows the crowd away with
\na trumpet solo that starts out suave and stylish and builds to a
\ncontrolled frenzy before falling back again.<\/p>\n
McCann’s piano work is consistently rich and effervescent,
\nnowhere moreso than on the aptly-named “You Got To Get It In Your
\nSoulness,” where his alternately playful and lyrical solo carries
\nthe first half of the song. Harris’ smooth, masterful solo is again
\nthe perfect complement, segueing into a blistering trumpet run from
\nBailey and a closing full-out jam. The remaining two tracks
\n(“Kathleen’s Theme” and “The Generation Gap”) are equally
\nentertaining.<\/p>\n
\nSwiss Movement<\/i> truly caught lightning in a bottle, turning
\nout to be the singular highlight of not one, or even two, but three
\ndistinguished jazz players’ careers. I’ll be the first to concede
\nthat every well-studied jazz fan out there already has this album.
\nBut for those of you who, like me, are relative beginners, I can’t
\nsay it loud or often enough — if you are the least bit curious
\nabout what great live jazz sounds like, go get this disc. NOW.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6812],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37542","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-les-mccann-eddie-harris","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37542"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37542"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}