Gil Evans' second album as a leader (a World Pacific set that has been reissued by Blue Note) features his reworking of eight jazz classics including "St. Louis Blues," "Lester Leaps In" and "Struttin' with Some Barbecue."
Evans' charts utilize three trumpets, three trombones, a french horn, a prominent tuba, one reed player, altoist
Cannonball Adderley and a four-piece rhythm section. Most memorable is a classic rendition of "King Porter Stomp" featuring the exuberant altoist
Cannonball Adderley, who is the main soloist on most of the selections. Other key voices include
Evans' piano, guitarist
Chuck Wayne and trumpeter
Johnny Coles. This is near-classic music that showed that
Gil Evans did not need
Miles Davis as a soloist to inspire him to greatness. ~ Scott Yanow