Buell Neidlinger - Big Drum

Quartet outing by the late, great Buell Neidlinger joined by a trio of relatively unknown but clearly very talented younger musicians. By his own admission Neidlinger opted to use his considerable talents to work in film music and 'go where the money was' rather than lead the life of a poor, starving musician. Ironically, with his strong ideas, prodigious talents and unshakable resolve, jazz as a whole is all the poorer for the fact that he only returned to recording in the late 1980s, and even more so for the fact that he released mainly only poorly distributed CDs on his own record label. As such, this hard-to-find rip skips in places, but is still very much listenable. This is intense, earthy music that while free, never moves so far 'outside' that it becomes self indulgent or derivative. (Seemingly) a live recording, this would have been an enviable evening's entertainment.

Performers: Buell Neidlinger (bs), Hugh Schick (tp), Marty Krystall (t-sx), Vinnie Colaiuta (dr)

1. Big Drum

2. Ming's Visit

3. Buejerk

4. O.P.

5. Tienanmen Bop

6. Brilliant Corners

7. El A

8. Sam's Blues

mp3/256kbps