Free Ride (Remastered) Dizzy Gillespie

• 1 Unicorn 06:46
• 2 Fire Dance 04:23
• 3 Incantation 06:37
• 4 Wrong Number 04:32
• 5 Free Ride 05:18
• 6 Ozone Madness 06:27
• 7 Love Poem For Donna 04:32
• 8 The Last Stroke Of Midnight 04:33
• Total Runtime 43:08

Info for Free Ride (Remastered)

The collaborations of Dizzy Gillespie and Lalo Schifrin went back to the early 1960s when the young Argentinian played piano in Gillespie's quintet. Schifrin's Gillespiana, a suite written for Gillespie and a big band, became one of the best known works of the era and its section called "Blues" a milestone in Schifrin's career. In 1977, Schifrin was established as a successful composer for television and movies but had maintained close ties with his former employer, who asked him to write the music that became Free Ride. The emphasis was on the funky pop side of jazz soul music. The electronic instruments included a synthesizer and the guitar of the appropriately nicknamed Wah Wah Watson. Also on hand among the backup musicians were Jerome Richardson, Oscar Brashear, Ernie Watts, and other stalwarts of the Los Angeles studio scene.

"Although Lalo Schifrin is justifiably praised for his soundtrack work, many jazz purists turn up their noses at his jazz dates, such as his '60s work with Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery. The things that make Schifrin an anathema to the diehards -- the huge orchestras, the pop and soul riffs, the general air of over the top theatricality -- are all over 1977's Free Ride, his reunion date with Dizzy Gillespie. (Schifrin had been Gillespie's arranger in the late '50s.) In fact, Free Ride is so painfully dated that it's transformed into cockeyed cool, just the sort of record ironic hipsters should listen to while they're reading the novelizations of '70s cop shows that they bought for a bundle off of eBay. Gillespie plays with his usual wit and panache, but most of the time, he sounds like a sideman on his own album; the real focus of Schifrin's arrangements is the funky wah-wah guitars and ARP synthesizer solos that take center stage on tracks like "Fire Dance" (which sounds exactly like it should be the theme for a Charlie's Angels spinoff) and the mellow disco of the closing "Last Stroke of Midnight." Occasionally, Gillespie gets to break out on his own album, with the lovely solo on "Love Poem for Donna" his particular standout. For what it is, Free Ride is really quite good (guests include Lee Ritenour and future star Ray Parker, Jr.), but it's very much a record of and for its time." (Stewart Mason, AMG)

Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet
Lalo Schifrin, keyboards, arranger, conductor
Oscar Brashear, trumpet
Jack H. Laubach, trumpet
Lew McCreary, trombone
Jerome Richardson, flute
Ernie Watts, saxophone
James Horn, saxophone, flute
Sonny Burke, piano, electric piano
Charles E. Spangler, synthesizer
Ray Parker Jr., guitar
Lee Ritenour, guitar
Wah Wah Watson, guitar
Wilton Felder, bass
Ed Greene, drums
Paulinho Da Costa, percussion

Digitally remastered

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