Amazon.com: Vertical Form Vi: CDs & Vinyl

If you're a fan of Gil Evans, Don Ellis, Stan Kenton, Miles' "In A Silent Way", or Les McCann's "Invitation to Openness", then "Vertical Form VI" (recorded live in 1977) is something you should check out ASAP. These are highly evocative big-band-electric-jazz tone poems; sit back and close your eyes while listening on headfones, and there's no telling where this music might take you. The sound is dense and complex, yet very open and spacious. Event II manages to be simultaneously fast-paced and glacially slow. And underneath its many layers of counterpoint, Event IV has a killer funk bassline that dancemixing DJs ought to sample, if they haven't already. (BTW, who's playing the rhythm banjo?) Perhaps Cliff Tinder, reviewing the original LP release in Musician magazine, said it best: "...a grand architectural edifice rises toward the sky... The richness of texture is almost tactile. The image is of monumental objects in gradual revolution." [Exactly!] "And amazingly, Russell's edifices swing. Tenaciously." Although many music critics past and present have indulged in sneering, ignorant dismissals of 1970s "fusion", there were many albums that gave that genre a GOOD name, and this is one of them. I only wish I could have attended this performance in person, to be knocked out by all the live power of this large ensemble. Thank you, Mr Russell!