Search - Oliver Nelson :: Blues & Abstract Truth

Nothing abstract about this truth!

Randy C. Baer | Los Angeles, California | 07/06/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the truly indelible timeless classics of jazz - just as brilliant today as on original release. Take a handful of the creme de la greatest talents of the '60's (or any previous or subsequent age), stir in one of the most gifted arranger-composers, and voila! Deserves to be named an Amazon Essential Recording. Check out Nelson's arrangements on the swingin' Sonny Rollins score to Lewis Gilbert's "Alfie" created about a half-decade later."

An Oliver Nelson classic full of all stars

Dennis W. Wong | 10/24/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What more can one say of this classic album except that it ranks next to "Kind of Blue" as one of those essentials you cannot do without. Every tune in this album is flawless with "Stolen Moments", perhaps the jazz standard like "So What", a staple in a jazz musician's repetoire. A recent bio on Bill Evans stated that he was miscast in this blues oriented album but one listen to "Teenie's Blues" and you can believe he's wrong. Though Evans himself has stated he is not strong in the blues, this track has tinges of Red Garland, an pianist that Evans replaced in Miles Davis' group and one could mistake Evans for perhaps Ahmad Jamal or Garland. Nevertheless Bill, like the others (Dolphy, Hubbard, Nelson, Chambers & Haynes) turns in a yeoman performance here particularly in his duet with Roy Haynes on "Cascades" with his harmonic leaps and twists. Make this one an essential!!"

A true "desert island album"

Van hella Lippz | The Cat Cave, Mt. Fromunda | 09/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Not normally being prone to hyperbolic spazziness, you'll have to forgive this -- it's my opinion that his album is truly, utterly without peer and more than justifiably deserves the oft-handed out tag "classic." Trust me, a most horrible curmudgeon and music snob...you won't be disappointed.



I'd never heard the titular tune until the cover version on Zappa's "Broadway the Hard Way" (wherein the Nelson tune morphs into the Police's "Murder By Numbers," complete with cameo from Mr. Sumner!)...went out the next day and got this wonderful, WONDERFUL disc, a cd that I've listened to probably thousands of times.



Bill Evans, Roy Haynes, Paul Chambers, Freddie Hubbard, and Dolphy. And THEN you have Mr. Nelson himself, blowing the most sweet and salty, just almost OUT THERE solos (you could think of Nelson as 'ice' to Dolphy's 'fire').



Seriously, this album is where it's at. Heartbreaking that Oliver Nelson wasn't around much, much longer -- he died in the mid '70s...and whatever you do, don't hold the theme to "The Six Million Dollar Man" against him!"