Live at Sweet Basil (Gil Evans album)

Live at Sweet Basil
Live album by Gil Evans & the Monday Night Orchestra
Released	1985
Recorded	August 20 & 27, 1984
Venue	Sweet Basil, NYC
Genre	Jazz
Length	71:27
Label	King/Electric Bird K23P6355-6 Gramavision 18-8610-1
Producer	Horst Liepolt & Shigeyuki Kawashima
Gil Evans chronology
British Orchestra (1983) Live at Sweet Basil (1985) Live at Sweet Basil Vol. 2 (1987)

Live at Sweet Basil is a live album by jazz composer, arranger, conductor and pianist Gil Evans, and recorded by King Records (Japan) in New York in 1984. It featured Evans with his Monday Night Orchestra, which included George Adams, Howard Johnson, and Lew Soloff. The album was originally released in the US on the Gramavision label.[1]

Background

Gil Evans' Monday night marathon sessions at "Sweet Basil Jazz Club" was originally a started as a workshop in April 1983, to select players and do rehearsals for preparing his Japan tour in May. As the performance at the workshop got attentions and had good reputation, the club asked Gil to continue the stage periodically on Monday from June, after the Japan tour.[2]

Reception

AllMusic awarded the album 2 stars, stating, "It may not have been "cool," but it was most assuredly great jazz".[3]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]

Track listing

1. "Parabola" (Alan Shorter) - 18:40
2. "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (Jimi Hendrix) - 7:21
3. "Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Silk Blue" (Charles Mingus) - 6:15
4. "Prince of Darkness" (Herbie Hancock) - 5:50
5. "Blues in "C": John's Memory/Cheryl/Bird Feathers/Relaxin' at Camarillo" (Charlie Parker) - 24:42
6. "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (Mingus) - 9:30 Omitted from CD reissue
7. "Up from the Skies" (Hendrix) - 8:39

Personnel

• Gil Evans - piano, electric piano, arranger, conductor
• Lew Soloff, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Shunzo Ohno, Miles Evans - trumpet
• George Adams - tenor saxophone
• Chris Hunter - alto saxophone
• Howard Johnson - tuba, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet
• Tom Malone - trombone
• Hiram Bullock - guitar
• Pete Levin - synthesizer
• Mark Egan - electric bass
• Adam Nussbaum - drums
• Mino Cinelu - percussion

References

1. Discogs album entry accessed June 17, 2014.
2. Nakayama, Yasuki (2018). "ギル・エヴァンスのマンディ・ナイト・セッション" [Gil Evans' Monday night sessions]. スイングジャーナル時代の中山康樹 [Yasuki Nakayama in "Swing Journal" era] (in Japanese). Tokyo, Japan: Shinko Music Entertainment. pp. 68–78.
3. Wynn, R., Allmusic Review accessed June 17, 2014.