Kansas City: A Robert Altman Film - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

 (14 customer reviews)

This soundtrack of Robert Altman's movie is one of my favorite jazz records in the past years.Altman's genial idea for the soundtrack was to put together some of the great musicians of the nineties and let them recreate the music played in K.C. during the thirties, without trying to copy the original versions of the tunes.In fact,any of these musicians was born at that time,except David "Fathead" Newman (born 1934,Texas),who was for years a member of Ray Charles' band.
"Blues in the dark",a 1938 Basie/Rushing tune,is a tenor duel between James Carter and Joshua Redman,remembering the famous Lester Young/Coleman Hawkins tenor battles."Moten swing",written in 1932 by Benny Moten,is played with great swing and features Jesse Davis' alto sax and James Carter.The rhythm section,made of Geri Allen,Mark Whitfield,Chris McBride and Victor Lewis reminds of the imperial Greene/Jones/Page/Basie team."I surrender dear" is a tribute to Coleman Hawkins' magnificent version of May 25,1940;the...Read more

This is an exciting and interesting Jazz CD, because it contains a proposal on how to deal with a problem that has never been entirely solved in jazz: how to re-create past music. In classical music you simply play the score, which contains more or less everything. But the essence of jazz is not in the score, but in all those non-objectifiable elements that are not in the score, namely, those collectively called "swing" (that's why the score is not the document in jazz, but only the recorded piece, which glorifies one particular instant). Hence, how do you solve the problem? Do you play ancient jazz with exactly the same sound and accents (horrible) or do you use modern tricks (maybe kitsch)? Do you repeat note-by-note the original solos or do you play new improvised ones on top of the old arrangements? There have been various attempts: for instance, Lennie Niehaus' system in Clint Eastwood "Bird" to electronically remove ancient rhythm sections and...Read more

At first listen, one will be hooked! I can't think of a better jazz soundtrack and I can't think of a post-70s jazz all-star recording that burns on EVERY SINGLE track. To hear cool cats like Nicholas Payton, Joshua Redman, Mark Whitfield and others in the new generation handle this watershed music with such fluidity lets the old fan and new recognize that jazz will transcend. The follow-up KC AFTER DARK: More Music from Robert Altman's Kansas City is equally energetic, expressive and ebuillent. All read the linernotes on how this recording was done in the confines of the movie being made.