Accent On Swing - Benny Carter

Advantages: Gets your toe tapping
Disadvantages: Jazz AND Abba? Will you have any street cred left?

...I think it's fair to say that even the most ardent Abba fan could never claim that the band is, was, or will be, cool. But what the Swedish supergroup did manage was to create some incredibly catchy, and suprisingly technical, music, with Benny and Bjorn realising early on that success was more of a possibility if they left the fronting of the band to the less photogenically challenged Agnetha and the other one. And so the copycat cover version was spawned. Copycat beget television tribute show, and tribute show beget hugely popular stage show. What all of these dopplegangers had in common was that, in the end, they were all the same. The same songs, done the same way, but worse than originally. And then came Nils Landgren and his Funk Unit. Landgren is a stunningly good jazz musician and normally has at least one 'cover' on each of his... Read review

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Advantages: Some really good tracks
Disadvantages: Some are "so-so"

...equally sophisticated as If You Wee Mine, it is a somewhat different, more melancholy style. The lyrics are slightly corny, it has to be said, though Frankie does well with them. The next song is also by Buck Clayton and his Orchestra and Frankie Laine. It is a version of My Old Flame. I am sorry, but since I heard the spike Jones version of My Old Flame, I really haven't been able to take this song as seriously as it deserves. (Spike Jones mangled the song to include a psychotic killer (sung as a passable impersonation of Peter Lorrie) Although somewhat bizarrely, Frankie Laine remains totally mute during the Buck Clayton version of My Old Flame! The next track is by the Benny Goodman Quartet, featuring Benny Goodman on clarinet, with fantastic swinging backing from the rest of his band, including jazz xylophone. Stompin' at the Savoy... Read review

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Advantages: A masterclass in arranging and playing
Disadvantages: None

...Gil Evans was at a creative peak when this was recorded in 1960. Having completed a trio of classic albums with Miles Davis (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain), he was now bringing classical influences into his own work - with amazing results. Often these were in quite small but important details: the delicate use of woodwinds (the barely noticeable bassoon on "La Nevada", the flute on John Benson Brooks' attractive "Where Flamingos Fly"); the inclusion of Harry Partch-style homemade percussion on George Russell's "Stratusphunk"; and more evidently in the choice of material (in this case, Kurt Weill's "Bilbao Song" - arranged so that, perhaps unexpectedly, it's Ron Carter's bass that takes the identifying vocal line from the song's chorus). It's Evans' own piano that introduces the album, on his own composition... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful