08-25-2012, 05:33 PM
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#23 (permalink)
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Certified H00d Classic
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Bernie Sanders's yacht
Posts: 6,129
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The Claus Ogerman Orchestra - Gate Of Dreams (1977)
ARTIST BACKGROUND German arranger, composer and orchestrator Claus Ogerman was, for a great number of years, one of Verve Records' secret weapons back in the 50's and 60's. Whether it was Frank Sinatra, Antonio Carlos Jobim or Bill Evans, Claus was usually there behind the scenes to give Lord knows how many classic records that extra "oomph" factor they might have been lacking otherwise in the orchestration department -- generally with fantastic results. Once the 70's rolled around though, Mr. Ogerman began to stretch his muscles by collaborating more directly with others under his own name, and thus we come to...
THE ALBUM While this isn't the first or last of Ogerman's various solo recordings, 1977's Gate Of Dreams is a Third Stream (jazz meets classical music) masterpiece that sort of looms over the rest of his recorded output like Mt. Everest. It features an all star cast in realms both pop and experimental jazz alike, including saxophone prodigy Michael Brecker, a young and newly famous guitarist named George Benson and pianist Joe Sample (among others).
WHY YOU WANT THIS To put it mildly, this record's really smokin'. The opening suite in and of itself, a gorgeous string-led tour de force called 'Time Passed Autumn' is the kind of track that set the stage sonically for everyone from latter day Philip Glass to frequent Studio Ghibli soundtrack-master Joe Hisaishi. Romantic woodwind sweeps and soaring arrangements surge like river eddies toward a waterfall, broken in places by guitar and sax and then coming back together again into a harmonic flow.
After a monstrous cut like that, you'd think Claus would be out of ideas, but the other four tracks are wonderful in their own right -- 'A Sketch Of Eden' has a cool bassoon/flute combination leading it on toward the close, whilst 'Night Will Fall' goes for broke on a smoldering laid-back funk groove with Brecker's sax at the forefront, good for the bleary-eyed dawntreader in all of us.
CLOSING REMARKS More romantic and tasteful as opposed to tending towards the schlocky (like some of the other attempts at blending jazz & classical I've run across over the years), Ogerman was making his mark on contemporary jazz long before there was anything resembling such a genre in the musical marketplace of the day, and his talent at blending cruise-friendly jazz-funk with celestial orchestral composition-sense is nothing short of killer. A big thumbs up on this one for you smooth jazz cynics out there, yessirree!
FINAL GRADE 
Last edited by Anteater; 09-09-2012 at 09:17 AM.
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