An excellent modern recording of a landmark work
Wildfire | UK | 08/07/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The disc contains a mix of composer/arranger contemporaries of Bob Graettinger who were promoted by Stan Kenton. The major work is Graettinger's City of Glass originally performed by Kenton. This new recording sparkles where the original suffers the limitations of the mono recording medium of the early 1950s.The performance has all the commitment and verve of a serious big band daring to play this sort of work - but then it is under Gunther Schuller's direction so good is to be expected.My only misgiving concerns the performance of an earlier version of The City of Glass (from 1947). Interesting it may be, I nevertheless felt its main use was to demonstrate why the work was rewritten. The original is a little more swing-y; develops its thematic material a lot less and is nowhere as daring in orchestrastion. It is not a version I'd want to hear again specially as I'm well acquainted with the 1951 rewrite. All in all a very good disc and a must-have for anyone interested in avant garde American music of the fifties/sixties."