Search - Terry Gibbs :: Sundown Sessions 2

Required Listening...

the Monkey King | Waveland, MS USA | 01/22/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Well, it ought to be...This is quite possibly a perfect big band album. Anyone who likes Jazz, thinks they might, or anyone who Hates Jazz should have this disc. If you Love Jazz, You'll Love it more, If you Hate Jazz, It'll change your mind! From the best version of Moonglow since Benny Goodman's to the ROCKIN' The Claw, you will listen to this disc over and over and over. In fact, you might want to just go ahead and buy two copies, cause you'll wear out the first one. Terry Gibbs is possibly the most underrated Jazz player in history. His band is simply amazing on every track, and his cool swing will make you rethink what you thought cool was. (In case you can't tell, I get really excited by this recording.) In my humble opinion, I think everyone ought to own this disc, as well as parade Terry around on our shoulders for his greatness as well as courage in putting and keeping this band together AFTER the Big Bands had died out. Its my understanding that during some of the particularly dry patches he paid the band out of his own pocket just to keep the band together. You may never hear a tighter band, or one that is having as much fun! BUY THIS NOW!!!!!!"

Sumptuous swing

Matthew Watters | Vietnam | 03/15/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Buttery smooth big band featuring a who's who of West Coast jazz royalty from the 1950s, including Conte Candoli, Lou Levy and Mel Lewis, performing charts by Bill Holman, Al Cohn, Marty Paich, and the like that feel like a big, warm embrace. As the other reviewer notes, rather gushingly, this CD features a great version of "Moonglow" that'll have you humming along to it in your head for days. But the saddest thing is that there were folks like my parents, who came of age during the 1940s, rather glumly thinking at the time that swing was dead. When I was a kid, they use to grumble all the time about how much they hated rock-and-roll and all the other new music being played on the radio. Meanwhile, Contemporary Records was sitting with this in their vaults. It never saw the light of day until 1987, so please forgive the awful cover graphics. And yet, if these Dream Band recordings had been released at the time with suitable cover art, they'd probably be big-band classics of the stature of, say, Art Pepper Plus Eleven. Instead, this big bear hug of a record is reduced to a mere curio, an obscurity most likely to be found in a cut-out bin. Hear it while ye may."