This CD reissue features the revived
Modern Jazz Quartet during their 30th year (counting a seven-year "vacation"), playing some of their usual repertoire -- such as "Django," "The Cylinder," and "Bags' Groove," which for some reason was renamed "Bags' New Groove" -- before an appreciative audience at the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival. In reality, this release adds little to
the MJQ's legacy, since all of the songs but vibraphonist
Milt Jackson's "Monterey Mist" had been recorded before (some of them many times), but it does show that the band still had its enthusiasm and the ability to make the veteran material sound fresh and swinging. [
Together Again! was reissued on CD in 2006.] ~ Scott Yanow