performed by Hollywood studio standbys. It took a few tries for the elements he was looking for to coalesce, but now he has hit his stride. Herbie Hancock, David T. Walker and Minnie Riperton all contribute, but it is Jones's confident stylistic vision which predominates. "Along Came Betty," a Benny Golson jazz evergreen, is particularly outstanding for its floating samba rhythm and for Hubert Laws and Jerome Richardson's flute work.
Quincy Jones has achieved pop success by shifting his instrumental emphasis from massed horns to multiple electric keyboards, guitars and voice. Thad Jones (no relation) and Mel Lewis lead an excellent New York big band which retains the traditional instrumentation. But they've landed a contract with Gamble and Huff's hot, hit-prone Philadelphia International label and recorded at Sigma Sound with veteran G&H arranger Bobby Martin producing and the result is one of the most gorgeous sounding big-band LPs of all time.
Thad Jones, the group's principal arranger and composer, is a kind of traditionalist — no multiple keyboards, wah-wah pedals or do-it-to-it lyrics for him—but he is also eclectic and unpredictable. The album begins, for example, with a single brass burst and an involved brass solo. Martin's production lingers lovingly throughout on the band's colors, aided by arrangements that make the most of reed doubling and break up instrumental grouping the way Ellington used to. If Lewis's drumming seems a little thin for Seventies tastes, Potpourri is nonetheless a delight, an auspicious beginning for Gamble and Huff's foray into jazz, and another indication that the big bands are coming back, one way or another. (RS 177)
BOB PALMER
