Friday, February 15, 2008

Paul Horn - Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts

To continue last week's Schifrin post:

Review: Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts by Paul Horn - composed and conducted by Lalo Schifrin. A fascinating and award-winning combination of jazz and liturgical music that holds up well over thirty years later. In fact, it's surprising this has yet to be released on CD given the recent chant music fad. Horn, playing flutes, clarinet and alto sax, is accompanied by his quartet, a small orchestra and chorus. There is a meditative quality to much of the music (except the free-ish "Credo"), yet the performances come alive on such up-tempo pieces as "Kyrie" and "Offertory." Again, Schifrin marries multiple and opposing styles with a poetry that is all his own. Many of these titles were dramatically overhauled for Schifrin's later release, Rock Requiem (1971) and revisited as is on his own quite excellent JAZZ MASS IN CONCERT (1998). In 1965, Jazz magazine called JAZZ SUITE "one of the best attempts at religious jazz, on or off record" and Down Beat said "from a jazz point of view, there are several fine spots on this disc. But they are just spots, and if jazz is one's primary interest, the jazz in this suite is well diluted by non-jazz elements."
Detailed notes on performances

Also mentioned in a Time magazine article from 1965: Cool Creeds


Paul Horn - Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts
320kbps, 66mb on megaupload
1. Kyrie
2. Interludium
3. Gloria
4. Credo
5. Sanctus
6. Prayer
7. Offertory
8. Agnus Dei

1 comment:

  1. Lovely album, turned out to be better than I expected. It's nice to put it in a list, next to your Lalo album and the Axelrod's Messiah. The latter still is my fav', but I'm biased :)

    Also, don't you just love that Time archive?? If only Down Beat would do the same. LA Times is expensive, but a great source nonetheless...

    Anyway, thanks!

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