GREEK VARIATIONS (WITH IAN CARR & DON RENDELL)

3.5 stars. I didn't now who Neil Ardley was but when I saw pretty much all of the band members of NUCLEUS on here including mastermind Ian Carr I had to check this out. There's 20 musicians if you count Ardley but according to the liners he only composed and conducted. He does play piano and is from the UK and was somewhat well known around Britain in the 60's, at least in Jazz circles. Not one musician plays on every track so we get 3 bass players including Jack Bruce, Neville Whitehead and Jeff Clyne and the latter two play double bass which leads me to my next comment that this is traditional or conventional Jazz. Yes it close to Fusion at times considering all these NUCLEUS members as well as Chris Spedding playing guitar on three tracks,but yeah suit and tie stuff. Seven horn players including Carr, Barbara Thompson, Karl Jenkins, Brian Smith and more. Trevor Tomkins plays drums on 4 tracks while John Marshall does three including the 24 minute opener. Five string players, 2 cello, 2 violin and 1 viola.

Released in 1970 the title of the album is "Greek Variations & Other Aegean Exercises". Because of who is on here this deserves that fourth star but it's just my alergies to anything too traditional Jazz sounding. Still there was a lot I enjoyed but found I really lost interest after the opener and yes 24 minutes later. There are a ton of horns on this one. A horn heavy album.