Jazz records with small strings sections

[Milestones]

By small I generally mean a string quartet. It's a more feasible thing, since most jazz artists don't have a lot of money to lay out. But I sometimes feel overwhelmed by a string orchestra, or that it leads to an "easy listening" quality.  Plus a string quartet is more likely to have the flexibility to improvise.

Here are some that come to mind:

• Max Roach Double Quartet (many sessions)
• Rhyme & Reason--Ted Nash
• Paradise--Tom Harrell
• Andrew Hill--some tracks from Mosaic box
• Symbols of Light--Greg Osby

I'm sure there are more.

[fasstrack]

Jimmy Raney: Suite for Guitar Quintet (Strings & Swings, Muse)...

[jazzbo]

Julian Cannonball Adderley "Jump for Joy"

Greg Osby "Symbols of Light" (my favorite Osby)

[optatio]

RIGMOR GUSTAFSSON / RADIO.STRING.QUARTET.VIENNA: CALLING YOU. ACT 9722-2 [2010]

[Chuck Nessa]

Ben Webster The Warm Moods.

[paul secor]

Lee Konitz: Holiday for Strings (Enja)

[brownie]

Couple favorites not mentioned yet...

Art Pepper 'Winter Moon'

Hal McKusick 'In a Twentieth Century Drawing Room'

[mikeweil]

[soulpope]

Slightly off-topic : Recently played the Vlach Quartet's Debussy + Ravel recording for Supraphon from 1963 and these performances transcend with ease the "border" of classical/jazz music .... forth and back ....

[JSngry]

How many stings are these? 

 

 

[Eric]

I like this one - cover says orchestra, but I recall the strings to be nimble and complimentary:

The relatively new album uses a string quartet on a few tracks - very nice:

 

Edited August 27, 2016 by Eric

[soulpope]

Kronos Quartet "Plays The Music Of Thelonious Monk" ....

[Larry Kart]

http://www.allmusic.com/album/in-a-twentieth-century-drawing-room-mw0000570419

Title makes it sound like pure frou-frou, but it's not. Albam also did that fine Hank Jones with strings album that Mike Weil mentioned above.

[duaneiac]

 

[Larry Kart]

4 hours ago, paul secor said:

Lee Konitz: Holiday for Strings (Enja)

I have some respect for arranger Daniel Schnyder, but my memory of this one is that the strings' rather intrusive, near-soloistic lines kept getting in Lee's way, more or less pushing him into outlining the melodies of the songs rather than embellishing them, which is what the strings were doing. My sense was that Schnyder was trying to do too much; I'd rather hear Lee's ideas than his.

[mjzee]

Included in the Mosaic Select.  Wonderful stuff.

[duaneiac]

This is an album I have heard of, but never heard.  Any one have thoughts to share about this one?

[soulpope]

Steve Kuhn/Gary McFarland "October Suite" (Impulse) ....

[jazztrain]

Barney Bigard with the Roger Kay Strings (1944, Rex)

Artie Shaw  Modern Music for Clarinet (Columbia)

Bob Wilber with the Bodeswell Strings (Bodeswell)

 

 

 

[Eric]

1 hour ago, soulpope said:

Steve Kuhn/Gary McFarland "October Suite" (Impulse) ....

yeah, that is a good one ...

[A Lark Ascending]

Inspired partly by a Bartok obsession of King's. 

[optatio]

ARTIE SHAW WITH STRINGS. EPIC – LG 3112 [1956]

 

See: https://www.discogs.com/de/Artie-Shaw-Artie-Shaw-With-Strings/release/6833829 

[duaneiac]

And Mr. Vache with a larger sting ensemble:

 

 

 

[paul secor]

4 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I have some respect for arranger Daniel Schnyder, but my memory of this one is that the strings' rather intrusive, near-soloistic lines kept getting in Lee's way, more or less pushing him into outlining the melodies of the songs rather than embellishing them, which is what the strings were doing. My sense was that Schnyder was trying to do too much; I'd rather hear Lee's ideas than his.

I guess we'll agree to disagree, Larry. I hear the string arrangements as being somewhat challenging to what Lee is playing, rather than providing the usual sweet backgrounds, and I like the contrast.

Hey - different strokes. Nothing wrong with that.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, paul secor said:

I guess we'll agree to disagree, Larry. I hear the string arrangements as being somewhat challenging to what Lee is playing, rather than providing the usual sweet backgrounds, and I like the contrast.

Hey - different strokes. Nothing wrong with that.

Thanks. I think I should listen again. BTW, a sublime record with Lee and a small group of strings is the one he did with Bill Russo "An Image":

https://www.amazon.com/Classic-Albums-Konitz-Harvard-Square/dp/B009RQZKTO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472335151&sr=8-1&keywords=konitz+an+image

In fact, that probably is the best soloist with a small string ensemble record I know. Russo also did a nice one with Cannonball playing material from Ellington's "Jump for Joy," but the major Russo composition on "An Image" is a genuinely major composition.