If you own only one jazz CD, it's probably Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Yet if that classic had never existed or benefited from Columbia Records' canny marketing of Miles, I bet Oliver Nelson's 1961 LP The Blues and the Abstract Truth (Impulse!) would sit on everyone's shelf instead. For the recording sessions, Nelson assembled an all-star sextet that included drummer Roy Haynes, Eric Dolphy (alto saxophone, flute) Bill Evans (who also played piano on Kind of Blue), and the upstart trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. All contributed fearless, amazing solos, especially Dolphy's rippling, rowdy flute on "Stolen Moments."
The album's superb tunes, "Stolen Moments," "Hoe-Down," and "Yearnin'," confirmed Nelson as a masterly arranger and composer. Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra (SRJO) codirector Michael Brockman elaborates, "Nelson is one of the few composers in the jazz world known as a complete composer. He wrote for every kind of situation from classical musicâfor symphony orchestras and chamber groupsâto film and TV scores to jazz."
Nelson arranged charts for countless sessions, such as James Brown's failed foray into big-band jazz, Soul on Top, and scored TV shows like Ironside and the theme for The Six Million Dollar Man, which any American male between the ages of 35 and 40 can hum for you. Perpetually busy, Nelson dropped dead of a heart attack at 43 in 1975.
Devoting an entire concert to Nelson's music, the SRJO performs a slew of songs and arrangements: "Stolen Moments" and "Hoe-Down," as well as "Blues and the Abstract Truth," the three movement Sound Piece for Jazz Orchestra, "Walk on the Wild Side," Billy Strayhorn's "Rain Check," and more.
The SRJO plays Sun June 11 (Kirkland Performance Center, 350 Kirkland Ave, 523-6159) at 3 pm, and Sat June 17 (Recital Hall at Benaroya, 200 University St, 523-6159) at 7:30 pm, $16â$32.
