Credits: Artwork – Mental Block
Bass – Percy Heath
Composed By – John Lewis (2) (tracks: 1 to 7, 9, 10)
Design [Album Design], Artwork By [Cover] – Stanislaw Zagorski
Drums, Percussion – Connie Kay
Engineer [Re-mix] – Ed Barton
Engineer [Recording] – Lewis Hahn*
French Horn – Jim Buffington (tracks: 4, 6)
Piano, Harpsichord – John Lewis (2)
Producer – Arif Mardin
Remastered By – Giovanni Scatola
Supervised By [Reissue Supervision] – Florence Halfon
Trombone – Garnett Brown (tracks: 4, 6)
Trumpet – Snookie Young* (tracks: 4, 6), Joe Newman (tracks: 4, 6)
Tuba – Don Butterfield (tracks: 4, 6)
Vibraphone [Vibraharp] – Milt Jackson
The socio-ironic album art should clue you into the fact that this platter comes from the early 1970s. But the Modern Jazz Quartet never really paid attention to changing musical fads and here they only slightly modify their sound with a harpsichord and a few stray horn jabs. The MJQ's button-down image has always took some focus off the deep grooves they can dig into; if you doubt that this classy chamber bop outfit had one of the most amazingly propulsive rhythm sections in jazz history just play "Walkin' Stomp." Even pianist/leader John Lewis could be deceptively funky player, while Milt Jackson continues to show why he was the single greatest vibraphonist in history.
~ Nick Dedina ~