The Festival Album was the only live set by the Jazz Crusaders not recorded at the Lighthouse. As such, it is a compilation of performances recorded at the Pacific Jazz and Newport Festivals in 1966.
The band had two different bass players during these gigs: Jimmy Bond was at the Newport Festival, while Herbie Lewis joined for the Pacific Jazz Festival. The band was well established everywhere but in New York, bewilderingly, and had recorded a dozen records, all of which were popular. And it’s e...
The Festival Album was the only live set by the Jazz Crusaders not recorded at the Lighthouse. As such, it is a compilation of performances recorded at the Pacific Jazz and Newport Festivals in 1966.
The band had two different bass players during these gigs: Jimmy Bond was at the Newport Festival, while Herbie Lewis joined for the Pacific Jazz Festival. The band was well established everywhere but in New York, bewilderingly, and had recorded a dozen records, all of which were popular. And it’s easy to see why. The version of Ken Cox’s “Trance Dance” that opens the set showcases all of the band’s strengths: solid hard bop chops and arrangements with a deep accent on the blues as it was emerging into soul-jazz..
Soloists Joe Sample, Wayne Henderson, and Wilton Felder are all in fine form here. The deep groove on “Summer’s Madness” by the trio is actually the signature piece of the Jazz Crusaders’ sound at the time. Sample’s “Freedom Sound,” from the Pacific Jazz gig, illustrates the deep lyricism at the heart of the band’s front line.
LP Track Listing
A1 -- Trance Dance
A2 -- A Summer Madness
B1 -- Young Rabbits
B2 -- Freedom Sound
Release date: 1966
Label: Pacific Jazz
Cat. no.: PJ 10115
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