Search - Oscar Peterson :: Reunion Blues

Not quite "Very Tall"

Miguel Gonzalez | OAK PARK, IL United States | 03/19/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The follow-up meeting between Oscar Peterson and Milt Jackson, recorded a decade after 1962's Verve date, "Very Tall," was wonderful except for one terrible misstep.The ballads on this record are unforgettable. "Red Top," a Lionel Hampton original, and the standards "When I Fall In Love" and "Someday My Prince Will Come" are rendered with grace and sweetness without a hint of melodrama. Drummer Louis Hayes' brush work is state of the art. While the presence and tone of Ray Brown's bass make it easy to hear the masterful musical logic of his incomparable accompaniment. Peterson and Jackson shine. Looking back one realized that these musicians were at their peak during a time when mainstream jazz was being incomprehensibly ignored.Altogether the session would have been flawless had it not been marred by one blemish; a compromising acquiesence to the commercial pressures of the day in attempting to translate the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" into a flight worth taking by such stupendous improvisers.Luckily it's the first track. So you can always just skip right over it."