Not quite classical yet not straight-ahead jazz, Bach to the Blues occupies a precarious spot on the 'soul' music spectrum. Frustrated with the rigidity of classical performance pieces, Lewis decided to take his trio in a new direction and incorporated elements of Jazz into their interpretation of Bach, Brams and Tchaikovsky. The result was an easy listening album ripe with deep cultural nuances. Listen for the balance between classical and blues.
Recorded at Ter Mar Recording Studio, Chicago 1/31/64
Ramsey Lewis, piano; Eldee Young, bass & cello; Richard Evans, bass; Red Holt, drums.Cadet 732 - 70's re-iussue.
Vinyl ripped @320 kbps
Link in comments...
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jd5ljjpix7r0h65
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, one of my dad's traditions/idiosyncrasies was that Sunday was a classical music only day, either through his extensive album collection or down at the south end of the FM dial where resided a few good classical stations. Being a typical teen of course anything he did or said was completely wrong, foolish, horribly old fashioned, or just completely out of touch. I have since apologized many times over (for that & many other teen based "I know I'm right & you're just an old fashioned idiot" arguments) & have come to realize that he probably just wanted a break from the Thin Lizzy that was shaking the house the rest of the week...
ReplyDeleteThe point of that long meandering flashback was to give my wholehearted endorsement of this RLT album. It is a perfect album for this particular early spring Sunday. I'm sitting out on the patio enjoying being out in the sun as winter winds down, the birds singing their songs, & in the background this lovely jazz album with it's salute/interpretation of long forgotten & yet quite familiar classical pieces. This album coming as it does right before they really started to be popularly recognized, really catches the trio at the top of their "keep working hard, we're almost there" era & it really shows in the way that the individual instruments really flow together.
Thanks much for posting this. I'd be quite interested in listening to any other classical fusion albums that you may have.
Thanks for great anecdote! It's comments like that that keep me going. Funny enough, this record actually hails from my father's collection. I'll try to post more like it.
DeleteThank you very much! A real gem...
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