MILT JACKSON

I thought Milt Jackson had learned his lesson in the mid-Fifties when he, as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, was involved in a lot of experimentation with the conscious hybridization of jazz and European classical approaches, from which nothing of enduring musical Value resulted. Nonetheless, here he is with another LP using a string quartet, and it demonstrates the same shortcomings the old MJQ albums did. Tom McIntosh’s arrangements are even more clumsy and plodding than John Lewis’ on the Third Stream Music LP; the string players have, no grasp of the jazz idiom; in fact, they often have a hard time simply keeping the beat... well, let’s just say that the strings are a complete failure, and go on to more interesting things.

Jackson himself, for instance. He’s one of the finest vibraharp players around, and his-work here is consistently superb. Unfortunately, most of the album is done in a jazz style fifteen years old, and tends to sound dated, almost corny sometimes. Despite this, there is a very high degree of musicianship evident, though, true, in an extremely mainstream vein.