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Symphonic in its scope

Dr.D.Treharne | Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom | 06/27/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Recorded over three session in August and September 1962 this is a densely textured album of symphonic scope.Art Farmer himself plays only Flugelhorn on the sessions. Oliver Nelson wrote all the arrangements. They make use of a wide range of instrumentation that sometimes is appropriate for the material and sometimes isn't. There's no doubting the quality of the playing on the album, but it's very much of a time gone by. Standout tracks are Billy Strayhorns "Rain Check" which interestingly has a Piccolo given a strong part in the arrangement.Farmers own "Rue Prevail" provides an excellent vehicle for his playing.Perhaps best of all is John Coltrane's "Naima", where again Farmer playes some very assertive Flugelhorn.Much less successful are the two Richard Rogers tracks,"My Romance" being co-written with Lorenz Hart and out of place with the other material. Perhaps most extraordinary of all is the opening track "Street of Dreams" which comes across almost as a symphonic piece, with a dense mesh of woodwind instuments weaving around Art Farmers playing. This is an album that takes a lot of getting into, and the appeal of some of the tracks comes after several plays as ideas and themes unravel themselves. Worth checking out as an album of its own time and place."