With one or two notable exceptions, making jazz is a team effort. Great performances are invariably great because all of the constituent parts – each artist, the arranger, and with recordings the producer and the engineer – make an essential contribution to the whole.
Since the beginning of recorded music performers have striven for new heights of technical and artistic achievement and over the years a continuous stream of jazz men and women have set extraordinary standards of excellence in their particular disciplines. Many have found success in more than one skill, such as playing and arranging, but only a few have attained the peripatetic success of instrumentalist, leader, composer, arranger and producer Oliver Nelson.
Born in 1932 into a musical family in St Louis (his brother played saxophone with Cootie Williams in the 1940s and his sister was a singer and pianist) Nelson started learning piano at six and began on the saxophone aged eleven. He turned professional at fifteen, playing with local St Louis bands such as Jetar-Pillars orchestra and George Hudson.
In 1950 he joined the rip-roaring Louis Jordan’s band as second alto-sax player and arranger where he remained until he was conscripted in 1951, spending the next two years in a Marine Corp ensemble. After his national service Nelson returned to Missouri where he spent the next four years studying music composition and theory at Washington and Lincoln universities.
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Track Listing :
Disc 1. Full Nelson; Skokiaan; Miss Fine; Majorca; Cool; Back Woods; Lila's Theme; Ballad For Benny; Hoe Down; Paris Blues; What Kind Of Fool Am I; You Love But Once; Hobo Flats; Post No Bills; A Bientot; Three Plus One; Take Me With You; Daylie's Double; Teenie's Blues; Laz-ie Kate.
Disc 2. St. Louis Blues; I Remember Bird; Ricardo's Dimemma; Patterns For Orchestra; The Sidewalks Of New York; Greensleeves; John Brown's Blues; Twelve Tone Blues; A Typical Day In New York; The East Side/The West Side; 125th And Seventh Ave; A Penthouse Dawn; One For Duke; Complex City.
Disc 3. Roll 'Em; For Dancers Only; Sophisticated Swing; Sometimes I'm Happy; Lined With A Groove; Lazy Theme; Now Hear My Meaning; In A Crowd; Sound Piece For Jazz Orchestra; Flute Salad; The Lady From Girl Talk.
Disc 4. Let The Word Go Forth; A Genuine Peace; The Rights Of All; Tolerance; The Artists' Rightful Place; Jacqueline; Day In Dallas; John Kennedy Memory Waltz; Love Is Just Around The Corner; This Is It; Memories Of You; Pee Wee's Blues; The Shadow Of Your Smile; Ja-Da; A Good Man Is Hard To Find; Bopol; I'm Coming Virginia; Six And Four.
Disc 5. Walk On The Wild Side; Ol' Man River; In A Mellow Tone; Step Right Up; Hobo Flats; Blueberry Hill; Walk Right In; Trouble In Mind; The Preacher; Meditation; I Can't Stop Loving You; Slaughter On Tenth Avenue; Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolff, Part One; Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolff, Part Two.
Disc 6. The Bird/The Duck/The Cat/ The Grandfather/The Wolf/The Hunter/Peter; Duck Theme/Jimmy And The Duck/Peter's Theme/Meal Time; Elegy For A Duck; Cat In A Tree; Capture Of The Wolf; Finale: Parade/Peter Plays Some Blues; One Mint Julep; Blues And The Abstract Truth; Down By The Riverside; Night Train; Death March; Milestones; 'Round Midnight.
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