Paul Desmond - Bridge Over Troubled Water

2 Pauls-Desmond and Simon-4 1/2 stars

I came across the reissue of this 1970 album by accident. The days of finding out a jazz reissue by going through the stacks of a brick and mortar store are gone and this is not a reissue to make any major headlines. However,it is a fine little album;glad to see it as an actual CD and not a download.Note that Leonard Feather gave this popjazz LP 5 stars in a 1970 issue of DownBeat.
This is a collection of Paul Simon instrumentals(Simon is not responsible for the music on"El Condor Pasa" and "Scarborough Fair")done by the great alsto sax player,Paul Desmond,known to the masses for his work in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and writer of that group's most famous tubne, "Take five". "Lyrical" is probaly the best single word description for Desmond,and it shows here.
The album was the first jazz release by A&M after a brief relationship with producer Creed Taylor. Taylor was responsible for a series of popjazz recordings for Verve,A&M and his own CTI imprint and was responsible for the bossa nova albums by Stan Getz and Wes Montgomery. The arranger on some of the Mongomery sessions,Don Sebesky,acts as producer and arranger here and it doesn't stray far from the Taylor template. Lots of all star session guys(Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter) and strings and brass. This is one case where Sebesky holds back with the extras and it helps. The songs have a amazing musical quality away from the lyrics,considering that they come from Simon's folkie days paired with Art Garfunkel,where the lyrics are held above the musical content. The arrangements are inventive;the players spot on and the album is quite listenable. Every track,repeatedly. I've owned this album on vinyl since its original relase and it still holds up. Even Herbie's electric piano shows no aging. A stand out track would be "Feelin' Groovy" which has some nice Ron Carter acoustic bass soloing,the Fender Rhodes pleasently sprinkled throughout,and Paul gets to solo with himself through multitracking. And the melancholy of "Old Firends" needs no words.
The album does not have the great Pete Turner graphics that the CTI/A&M albums had up till this release.Universal states in the credits that this was released in 1969.I suspect that it was recorded in 1970,after Creed Taylor and A&M split,and probably recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. Both Sebesky and Desmond would rejoin Creed Taylor on Taylor's CTI label,but this album doesn't feel like a contract obligation effort. Listenable to the jazz fan and probably anyone else in the room. But take note,there is a difference between jazz and jazz that sounds smooth. July 20, 2008

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