"This is a band at the peak of its potential, capable of great power, but also of great range."
“...the living embodiment of vibrancy, unrivaled in its ability to thrill mind and body alike. No jazz composer so effortlessly weaves so much jazz history...into so rich and satisfying a tapestry of sound.”
“...the musicians resembled a vast rock-n-roll band, a Moroccan folk ensemble, a symphonic band playing a hoedown, a jostling crowd of Dixieland street-stompers, a scholarly Schoenbergian tone-row outfit whose drinks had been spiked, and plenty more besides. It was one of the best shows I have seen in twenty years, and is a hot contender for the hair-raiser of the entire decade.”
“One of America’s greatest living composers.”
“George Russell may be the greatest theoretician in the history of jazz, but he certainly knows how to boogie. The baddest, funkiest big band in jazz.”
“Nobody in jazz today writes with Russell’s scope, feel for ensemble structure, or intellectual reach. Nobody in jazz writes like this, period.”
“One of the decisive forces in the development of modern jazz.”
“The Living Time Orchestra is a compelling and persistently surprising force in contemporary music.”
“All of the music’s most important developments from modal improvisation to electronics, African polyrhythms to free form atonality to jazz-rock have taken cues from Mr. Russell’s pioneering work.”
“...the rousing, maniacally wonderful, cutting-edge music of George Russell, the eternally youthful avant-garde maestro and his Orchestra, a wild band of virtuosos...a truly original blend of funk, rock and freewheeling, contemporary jazz.”
“George Russell is the Duke Ellington of our generation...and the only musician capable of magically firing up a big band.”
“Not only were the harmonics, melodic and dynamic shifts in the extended suites often astonishing, but the rollicking, joyful rhythms often tempted one to flout the Smithsonian’s decorum and dance in the aisles.”
“...One of the greatest composer/bandleaders in jazz, not presently, but in an all-time sense.”
“...one of the world’s great jazz aggregations.”
“...for nearly half a century he has taken the path of absolute individuality and staggering ambition.”
“...George Russell is not only one of the great American composers of the postwar period, he is the jazz composers jazz composer.”
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