THE NEW JAZZ ORCHESTRA - LE DEJEUNER SUR L'HERBE

The New Jazz Orchestra for Verve UK  from 1969.

Directed By – Neil Ardley ; Bass – Jack Bruce ; Drums – Jon Hiseman ; Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet – Dave Gelly ; Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Clarinet – Jim Philip ; Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Dick Heckstall-Smith ; Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute – Barbara Thompson ; Trombone – Derek Wadsworth, John Mumford, Michael Gibbs, Tony Russell ; Trumpet – Derek Watkins, Harry Beckett, Henry Lowther ; Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Ian Carr ; Tuba – George Smith ; Vibraphone, Marimba – Frank Ricott ; Producer – Tony Reeves

An absolute monster of an album and an expensive rarity with no reissues in any format.It really does deserve the epithet   All Killer No Filler !

Back in 2008 I posted a (now long gone) low quality rip from a mashed vinyl copy of this at OIR Contributions which was donated by a reader.This time I've used my own clean copy and ripped it to both FLAC and MP3 formats.It's highly unlikely the album will ever see the light of day again due to legal reasons so I thought it worthwhile providing both.

The New Jazz Orchestra, which Neil Ardley directed, was a meeting place for many talented young jazz musicians and composers in Britain in the 1960s. Inspired to some extent by the great American jazz arranger Gil Evans, it consciously styled itself a jazz orchestra, rather than a big band. The NJO had been going for four years when this album was recorded in 1968 and these pieces, the cream of its repertoire, exemplify the maturing craft of its composers and arrangers in developing not only tone colour but also ways of integrating improvisation and composition. They are well served by the orchestra's spirited soloists and spring-heeled rhythm section.