Tom Harrell has received rave reviews from his fellow jazz musicians for years, but he only started receiving the attention he deserved from a wider audience in the latter half of the 1990s. A number of
Harrell's compositions and arrangements on this outstanding big band session date from the 1960s but are just now being recorded; it is more than worth the wait. The background harmonies behind the soloists on the hard-driving "Shapes" are incredible; the tense "Daily News" with his rich flugelhorn, the haunting ballad "Times Mirror," and the foot tapping blues "Train Shuffle" are all candidates to become jazz standards. His treatments of "Autumn Leaves," "Dream" and "Chasin' The Bird" display vivid imagination.
Harrell's playing on trumpet and flugelhorn is sparkling, and tenor saxophonists Alex Foster and
Don Braden as well as pianist
Xavier Davis also shine. Highly recommended! ~ Ken Dryden