Billboard : 05/12/1956
Score of 78

Using an unusually constructed jazz ensemble (vibes, trumpet, tenor, alto and baritone saxes, tuba, guitar, piano, bass and drums), Charles creates jazz chamber music of an advance experimental kind. Besides Charles, the arrangers of this provocative, far-out material included Gil Evans, Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. With nine other musicians of stature, who understood his ideas, Charles pulled off a real tour de force on these dates. This is a real “must” buy for most brands of “modernists.”

—–

San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 09/02/1956

These are interesting modern jazz experiments with harmony with good solos as well. The whole LP is a bit hard to take at one sitting, but if you go at it side by side, you may like it.

—–

Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 08/11/1956

For better or worse, this is an important jazz record. Charles, a composer-arranger-vibraphonist, has done a good bit in the past five years toward showing the structural and harmonic boundaries of a jazz outward. Here he has assembled A. Farmer, G. Gryce, J.R. Monterose, G. Barrow, S. Schlinger, D. Butterfield, J. Raney, Mal Waldron, T. Kotick, and Joe Harris. The five originals are by Charles (2), J. Giuffre, G. Russell, and Waldron, and the two standards have been arranged by Charles and Gil Evans. The biggest deviations here are harmonic; there is limited solo space (Charles has taken too much of what there is); and at first hearing there is a lot of fancy-dandy dissonance and constructional clutter to wrestle with before the generally organic forms present begin to take shape. The group functions like a clock, and if there is occasional pretension and non-jazz, it is because all experiments must by nature be somewhat self-conscious and exaggerated. Recommended.

—–

Down Beat : 06/27/1956
Jack Tracy : 5 stars

Teddy‘s Tentet is made up of Peter Urban (Art Farmer), trumpet; Gigi Gryce, alto; J.R. Monterose, tenor; George Barrow, baritone; Don Butterfield, tuba; Jimmy Raney, guitar; Mal Waldron, piano; Teddy Kotick, bass; Joe Harris, drums; Sol Schlinger, baritone, for Barrow on sides 1, 3, 7.

The composters-arrangers: Waldron (1); Jimmy Giuffre (2); Charles (3,4,5); Gil Evans (6) ; George Russell (7).

This is one that grows on you. There is so much to hear in the writing, so much going on in the group, so many solo moments of merit that come out at you in short bursts, and so much intensity in the performance that a lot of listenings are just about mandatory. Or perhaps I should say, this collection is going to be listened to often by me.

Charles’ intent? Best described in his own excellent liner notes: “This is what I really want to present on records. Jazz of today. Not 10, or 2 or 15 years ago. Not even futuristic, experimental stuff. But a representation of my favorite jazz performers, using contemporary jazz means, playing in an ensemble organically the aggregate of their many individual jazz talents.”

They do an excellent job of fulfilling Teddy’s aim. This was a well-rehearsed session – not 10 men walking into a studio and playing some difficult music at sight. Charles chose personnel and writers wisely, with his own Green Blues, Giuffre’s Quiet Time, and Gil Evans’ Go to My Head particularly well adapted to the size and capability of the tentet.

Put this one up on your shelf along with the Miles Davis Capitol sides and the Gerry Mulligan Tentet album.

—–

Liner Notes by Teddy Charles

Comes a time when you begin to search anew. You’ve written for and played with almost every conceivable small jazz group instrumentation. You want to “stretch out” for something bigger. But it must be an ensemble consistent with your personal ideas on jazz.

You reject the standard big band formula. That was born of dancing, large ballrooms, and theatrical displays – the bigger the better (?). The ideas of Gil Evans occur to you. Gil introduced tuba and French horn to Claude Thornhill‘s fine band of ’47, later reducing it to the jazz group proportions of the Miles Davis nine piece band of ’48-’49. The innovation was a great musical success; big band and small alike haven’t been the same since.

However, you play the vibes, and you want an instrumentation that may utilize the potential of your instrument, melodically, ensemblewise, and percussively. And you want to use to advantage your own experience gained in playing with everything from a vibes-bass duo with Mingus, to the Composer Workshop nine piece group and big bands.

Finally you approach it this way: what jazzmen would I like to hear blowing in a group, that would comprise an extremely flexible instrumentation adaptable for larger forms, and who in combination would produce a very distinctive sound consistent with my idea of jazz?

Fortunately almost everyone you have in mind is available, and interested. You get Peter Urban (Art Farmer), who played in your group a year or so ago, a swinging creative trumpeter, with big band lead experience, having a sensitive sound all his own. You think of his confrere, the fresh, lyrical, well-schooled Gigi Gryce for alto. Next, from your current group the swinging J.R. (Eastcoast Jake, NOT Westcoast Jack) Monterose; an authoritative tenor voice. On baritone, a guy who can blow, and play ensemble, from later Composer Workshop groups, George Barrow, and Sol Schlinger (when George left town on a gig) fit both requirements well. Don Butterfield, from the first C.W. was the likely choice for tuba, having a distinctive smooth sound with a good jazz feel; a virtuoso on his horn.

Now you have two brass, a top and bottom, and three saxes having lead, bottom, and inner voice possibilities and possessed of more flexibility of articulation then trombones or French horns. For swinging strings, six of them, and one of our most creative jazz men to play them, guitarist Jimmy Raney, an earlier musical associate of mine. And under him, Bird‘s favorite bassist, Teddy Kotick, who plays a walking, lyrical bass line, currently with my quartet. Piano, probably a necessity for blowing in a group of this weight, would require a keyboard artist, as well as a comper and soloist. Hence, Mal Waldron, another Workshop man with a fine classical background. Now you need a drummer-percussionist who has the ability to swing a large ensemble, yet who can play with the sensitivity required for small band blowing. Joe Harris swung the great Dizzy Gillespie big band, and we had both played in Chubby Jackson‘s exciting power house.

Thus the Tentet! An ensemble of individual jazz artists, all fresh, all playing jazz of today. In fact, the idea suddenly jelled. This is what I really want to present on records. Jazz of today. Not ten, or two, or fifteen years ago. Not even futuristic, experimental stuff. But a representation of many of my favorite jazz performers, using contemporary jazz means, playing in an ensemble organically the aggregate of their individual jazz talents. Fortunately, I’d been associated musically with almost every man in the Tentet in my own group or others.

As the idea grew, I decided that there were some jazz composers of great significance that should be represented in any collection of jazz of today. I contacted several. The four composers represented here are of course only a few of these, because of space limitations. I felt it more important to give ample time to each writer for extended expression than to cut more and shorter sides. Later albums will present more. Suffice to say that each writer here is a unique and contemporary voice.

Jimmy Giuffre is a wonderfully mature, inventive jazz composer. His contribution The Quiet Time represents a beautiful summation of his recent thoughts. The ensemble with implied rhythm and melodic drums leads with wonderful contrast into a swinging blowing section, after which the rhythm section departs to more melodic functions. Crystal clear linear writing on very provocative material.

George Russell wrote the great classic Cubano Be, Cubano-Bop for Diz, and Ezzthetic for Bird and Lee. Here George presents Lydian M-1, a startlingly different work which moves with quiet fury throughout. It utilizes the principles of George’s own recently developed harmonic theory, “the lydian concept of tonal organization.” Its execution demanded virtuoso performances from the musicians.

Mal Waldron‘s Vibrations was presented at Newport. It killed me there, and even more in this recorded performance. You’d swear it was written for Gigi. Just beautiful!

And the aforementioned Gil Evans, of course. Here’s a real quiet guy, who writes with immense imagination and skill, and who, unbelievably, has been neglected in the last few years. None but the hip know that Gil founded the whole Mulligan school of writing and all its subsequent annexes. And as previously mentioned, Gil revolutionized the approach to large ensemble writing with a unique sense of orchestration and overall compositional approach. His contribution illustrates this perfectly. You Go To My Head is a nice though oft-used ballad. Gil treats it unusually, giving it at once a burlesque-ish and an ethereal character. And have you heard a more beautiful example of large ensemble writing?

For my own pieces, Green Blues represents a departure from my recent emphasis on pieces with long sections of static tonality. Here the harmony is tense and thick, and chromatic almost to the point of destroying tonality at times, with only the transition passages comping harmonically to reset for any length of time. The Emperor was introduced at a Composer Workshop concert, and then revised for presentation at Newport. I had a story-idea in mind as I wrote it, and the fantasy developed along with the piece. Rather than hinder the listener’s imagination, I’ll say only this – any jazz fan should know who the Emperor was, so, do-it-yourself. I had always thought Nature Boy a beautiful melody. I’ve changed the harmonies to make it into a mood-jazz piece.

Complex technical details of each composition could be given, but anybody understanding the jargon wouldn’t need it. Moreover, there’s only one instrument of a kind, so solo order is obvious. I think all the performers did a great and sympathetic job. You can listen to this casually, or accept it as a challenging experience in listening to undiluted jazz. Either way, I hope you are moved, as I am, by this jazz of today.