Lalo Schifrin's fourth attempt to merge symphonic and jazz conceptions takes a turn into dangerous waters, venturing into 20th century classical techniques and some of jazz's most challenging composers. It was a gutsy move to confront the mantle of
Gil Evans by rearranging "La Nevada," ayet
Schifrin spoons on the added orchestral weight carefully, retaining and deepening
Evans' mauve colors and dissonance -- and it becomes a swinging delight. Moreover,
Evans' sonorities become the dominant colors in the succeeding pieces "Sanctuary," a suave, moody piece of work balancing both camps with assurance, and the "Tosca Variations," where the aria "E lucevan le stelle" is cleverly launched by
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
Schifrin makes complex, appropriately quirky, even forbidding music out of a string of
Thelonious Monk tunes in "Miraculous Monk" and continues the disturbing intensity on "Invisible City" before relaxing expansively in "Rhapsody For Bix"; the latter features a splashy, un-
Bix-like soloist in trumpeter
James Morrison. The cast of players changes considerably from previous albums;
Morrison and
Ray Brown remain in place, now joined by
the London Symphony Orchestra, violinist/guitarist
Markus Wienstroer, drummer
Jeff Hamilton and conguero
Francisco Aguabella -- not to mention
Schifrin himself on piano. Though one shouldn't use this disc as an entryway into the Jazz Meets the Symphony series, it is the boldest CD of the lot so far, unleashing the full resources of contemporary classical music and welding it firmly onto a jazz chassis. ~ Richard S. Ginell