Lalo Schifrin turned 75 on June 21, 2007. In anticipation of that milestone, he convened the recording session for this album a little less than three months earlier, on March 30, 2007, intending to return to his first love of acoustic jazz. The sextet making up the pianist/composer's friends here includes saxophonist
James Moody,
James Morrison on trumpet and trombone, guitarist Dennis Budimir, bass player
Brian Bromberg, and Alex Acuña on drums and percussion. It's an accomplished lineup, and
Schifrin wrote and arranged material to showcase the players, beginning with the standard "Besame Mucho," on which
Morrison's trumpet takes the lion's share of space.
Moody's tenor is given greatest attention on "Fast Forward," the first of six
Schifrin originals, and Budimir is the star of "Old Friends." The lengthy "Free Parking" begins with
Morrison's trombone leading, followed by an extensive bass solo from
Bromberg, before
Morrison returns on trumpet. "Night Walk" is given over to
Moody and Acuña. Of course, the leader himself does not go unheard up to this point, but he begins to assert himself more late in the set, duetting with
Bromberg on the head section of "A Tribute to Bud" (that's
Bud Powell, of course), and really taking over on the melancholy ballad "Winter Landscapes," which finds the horns laying out. An extended take of "Tin Tin Daeo," which evokes
Schifrin's mentor,
Dizzy Gillespie, is also performed sans horns, but
Moody makes a comeback on
Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom." It's easy to imagine this 63-minute collection forming the basis for a hot set at a small jazz club, and that may be the intention.
Schifrin has ranged far and wide since his days of playing piano with
Gillespie, but, as he says in Richard Palmer's liner notes, "Once a jazz musician, always a jazz musician." ~ William Ruhlmann