VINYL, BABY!!! Courtesan just arrived, split the seal, and got it spinning now. Wow, not what I was expecting, but then again, I really had no expectations. Jumps from cool, to orchestral melancholy, to tongue in cheek, to bop. It's not an easy album to categorize. And to top it off, it's a nice dynamic recording. Thanks for the recommendation, dB.
Scott
No problem. Hope you enjoy it too, poseidonsvoice. To me, Road Time Shuffle alone is worth the price of admission. Although I don't have an ax to grind in the vinyl-vs-CD debate, this is a recording that definitely sounds better to me on vinyl, although to be fair, the CD may just have gotten a get-it-out-there mastering job. European Memoir, mentioned in another post, is another good one. Mingus is another important big band presence (in fact, Toshiko Akiyoshi got her first real break playing with him.)
Some of the later A-T albums don't grab me quite as much emotionally either. I think the economics of maintaining a working big band got to be too much at some point and Toshiko just assembled musicians for the recordings. Hard to get the same vibe that way. Saw them live in '79- to this day, one of the ass-kickin'est concerts I have ever been to.
