COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Pacific Jazz
PERFORMER: Buddy Rich (d) with his big band
CATALOGUE NO: 5 23999 2
Buddy Rich was one of the great drummers in jazz, and his big band, curiously undervalued when it was around from the Sixties into the Eighties, has a snap and crackle that is truly contagious. There are some excellent solos by George Zonce on ‘Celebration’, and new star in the making Richie Cole on the title track.
This is the sixth and final album Rich made for Pacific Jazz, and Dean Pratt deserves praise for the reissue series – once again we have the original album plus an album’s worth of previously unreleased material. Stuart Nicholson