Jim Hall - Concierto (1978 Japanese CTI Limited Edition Vinyl LP)

Jim Hall - Concierto | Vinyl LP - 1978 Japanese CTI Records Limited Edition Reissue (LAX 3186, CTI Original 1500 Series, King Record Co. Ltd)

Creed Taylor built CTI on the idea of putting a leader in front of the best players available and giving the result a heavy production sheen, and it worked more often than the label's reputation now suggests. Concierto is the clearest case for the approach. Hall had spent two decades as a guitarist other musicians wanted on their records, working with Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans and Paul Desmond, and recording as a leader only intermittently and mostly in duo settings. Taylor put him in Englewood Cliffs with a sextet and left the orchestra at home, which is why this sounds like a jazz record rather than a CTI production. "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" opens at just over seven minutes with Baker and Desmond stating the Porter melody together, two of the most economical horn players in the music and both operating well inside their range. "Two's Blues" is Hall's, brisk and under four minutes. "The Answer Is Yes" is by Jane Hall, published through the couple's own Janhall Music, and it gives the sextet its most open playing on side A.

Then side B. Rodrigo composed the Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra in 1939, and the Adagio second movement has drawn jazz musicians ever since, most famously when Gil Evans built the whole first side of Sketches of Spain around it in 1960. Sebesky's arrangement here does something different by giving the melody back to a guitar. Hall states it on electric guitar while accompanying himself on an overdubbed Spanish guitar, Carter provides a bass line closer to continuo than to walking, and Baker and Desmond trade the theme between them before the arrangement opens out and the piece becomes a jazz performance rather than a transcription. It runs nineteen minutes and does not sag.

This is the 1978 Japanese limited edition on CTI LAX 3186, manufactured by King Record Co. Ltd.