{"id":425,"date":"2011-01-17T05:54:23","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T10:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=425"},"modified":"2011-01-17T05:54:23","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T10:54:23","slug":"album-review-vince-guaraldi-trio-jazz-impressions-of-black-orpheus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/17\/album-review-vince-guaraldi-trio-jazz-impressions-of-black-orpheus\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Vince Guaraldi Trio – Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus"},"content":{"rendered":"

All too often, when presented with the phrase \u201ccrossover jazz,\u201d contemporary listeners bring forth mental visions of Kenny G<\/strong>. His sort of insipid, non-challenging elevator music is, for many, the typical example of what happens when jazz goes popular.<\/p>\n

It was not always so. Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi<\/strong> was already at the top of his game in the winter of 1961-62 when he recorded the album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus<\/em> with his trio. With Monty Budwig<\/strong> on the upright bass and Colin Bailey<\/strong> on the traps, the album \u2013 though packaged as a bandwagon-jumping exercise in the bossa nova subgenre \u2013 was a monster hit. Though this all took place before his even-higher-profile Peanuts<\/em> cartoon soundtrack work, Jazz Impressions<\/em> was that rarest of creatures: an album that satisfied both jazz aficionados and the mass pop market.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s success was due in no small part to the inclusion of a Guaraldi original called \u201cCast Your Fate to the Wind.\u201d Rarely has an instrumental been so aptly titled; the sprightly, upbeat, jubilant tune exudes a carefree attitude. The signature melodic line so embedded itself in the popular consciousness that it has popped up again and again, sometimes in rather unexpected places. In the mid-1960s through early 70s, John Fogerty<\/strong>\u2019s group Creedence Clearwater Revival<\/strong> recorded for Fantasy, the same label that released Guaraldi\u2019s Jazz Impressions<\/em>. In the 1980s, the title track from Fogerty\u2019s \u201ccomeback\u201d LP Centerfield<\/em> was built around a lick quite similar to Guaraldi\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Vince Guaraldi\u2019s album as a whole is every bit as successful as \u201cCast Your Fate to the Wind,\u201d though it surveys a number of styles and moods. And though billed as a bossa nova excursion, that style appears rather subtly. Guaraldi took the music from the 1959 film Black Orpheus<\/em> and recast it in his own context. The hybridization is a successful one.<\/p>\n

The original album\u2019s eight tracks have been joined by five additional numbers on the 2010 Concord reissue. In addition to a single edit of \u201cSamba de Orfeu,\u201d four alternate takes of other album tracks are included. Derrick Bang<\/strong>\u2019s reissue liner notes center mostly on \u201cCast Your Fate to the Wind,\u201d but make clear that the author understands his subject well. (Bang is working on a book about Guaraldi.) Yet left unexplained* is a minor mystery: the original back cover of the LP listed the fourth track as \u201cGenerique\u201d and credited it as public domain; on the reissue it\u2019s listed as \u201cFelicidade,\u201d a composition by Antonio Carlos Jobim<\/strong> and Vinicius de Moraes<\/strong>. Still, a minor mystery is all it is, so we\u2019ll leave it at that and simply enjoy this delightful album.<\/p>\n

* update:<\/strong> See Derrick Bang’s concise explanation in the comments… <\/em><\/p>\n

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All too often, when presented with the phrase \u201ccrossover jazz,\u201d contemporary listeners bring forth mental visions of Kenny G. His sort of insipid, non-challenging elevator music is, for many, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}