Search - Leroy Jenkins :: Mixed Quintet

The music of the spheres

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 04/12/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hindsight does have its advantages. Anyone who has listened to creative improv musics for the last forty or so years who looks at the personnel on this March 1979 date is going to get excited. This is one of those cultural events wherein everybody involved with it went on the a stellar career in their own right.

Leroy Jenkins by this time was already accomplished and recognized as the leading violinist of his time. His music drew upon many genres-blues, jazz, free improv, classical-transcending them all in his own heady brew. Joining him on this date was a rising star on flute, James Newton. Marty Ehrlich played bass clarinet on the session. J.D. Parran, like Ehrlich, a member of St. Louis' BAG, played clarinet. Finally, John Clark played the French horn. No chordal instrument, no rhythm section at all- hardly the usual jazz quintet of the time (or for that matter, of any other time).

The resulting music is hard to describe- imagine if Debussey composed a couple of selections for accomplished improvisers. Or imagine if a dixieland jazz band from the twenties had devoted themselves to the gravitas of Bartok. That doesn't do it either. What you will hear on this CD is just the music of Leroy Jenkins- rich in the sound of his violin, viola, drawing equally on the harmonic insights of Ellington, Schoenberg, Parker, mixed in with the masterful tone of Newton, Ehrlich, Parran and Clark.

I put this CD on a list of neglected masterworks in creative improv from the 1980s. That is exactly what this is. This is one of my favorite Jenkins' CDs. It is a masterpiece and you should give yourself the chance of hearing it."