Thesaurus | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1969 | |||
Recorded | August 16 and 17, 1968 at T.T.G. Studios | |||
Genre | Jazz | |||
Length | 40 min | |||
Label | Atlantic SD 1520 | |||
Producer | Albert Marx | |||
Clare Fischer chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Cash Box | favorable [2] |
Coda | favorable [3] |
High Fidelity | favorable [4] |
The New York Times | favorable [5] |
External audio | |
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You may listen to "UMMG" here |
Thesaurus is an album by American composer/arranger/pianist Clare Fischer, recorded and released in 1969 by Atlantic Records. [6] Reissued in 1979 as 'Twas Only Yesterday by Discovery Records, [7] and on CD, again by Discovery, in 1988 as part of a CD entitled Waltz, encompassing both Thesaurus and the 1980 LP, Duality. [8] In 2000, Thesaurus received a dedicated CD reissue under its original title from Koch Records. [9]
Ken Dryden reviewed Thesaurus for Allmusic and wrote: "Fischer's potent originals and first-rate arrangements bring out the best in his musicians...A well-conceived chart of Billy Strayhorn's 'Upper Manhattan Medical Group' swings mightily. The leader even makes a rare appearance on alto sax in the brief 'In Memoriam,' dedicated to the assassinated Kennedy brothers." [1] The New York Times review by Martin Williams was written shortly after the album's original release:
West Coast pianist Clare Fischer has done what I wish Monk would do: he has written his own big band arrangements; the results are admirable. Fischer can make his ensembles whisper, sing, shout, praise, explain, cajole, proclaim. He is not afraid to be simple when simplicity will work; he can write for a mere quintet within the ensemble when he wants to. The solos by tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, particularly, and baritone saxophonist Bill Perkins are the best I've heard from these men, but, the leader excepted, some of the other improvisers confine themselves to other people's ideas. [5]
All selections composed by Clare Fischer except where noted.
All selections arranged by Clare Fischer with the exception of "Calamus," which is arranged by the composer.
Side One
Side Two
On "Calamus," "Bitter Leaf" & "Upper Manhattan Medical Group," Buddy Childers is replaced by John Audino.
Warne Marion Marsh was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protégé of pianist Lennie Tristano and earned attention in the 1970s as a member of Supersax.
Douglas Clare Fischer was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University, he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group the Hi-Lo's in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Donald Byrd and Dizzy Gillespie, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the Latin jazz standard "Morning", and the jazz standard "Pensativa". Consistently cited by jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock as a major influence, he was nominated for eleven Grammy Awards during his lifetime, winning for his landmark album, 2+2 (1981), the first of Fischer's records to incorporate the vocal ensemble writing developed during his Hi-Lo's days into his already sizable Latin jazz discography; it was also the first recorded installment in Fischer's three-decade-long collaboration with his son Brent. Fischer was also a posthumous Grammy winner for ¡Ritmo! (2012) and for Music for Strings, Percussion and the Rest (2013).
Far East Suite is a 1967 concept album by American jazz musician Duke Ellington, inspired by his group's tour of Asia. Ellington and longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn wrote the compositions.
Stewart Roussin Fischer known professionally as Dirk Fischer or Dirty Dirk Fischer was an American composer, arranger, educator, trumpeter, and valve trombonist. Before moving to California in 1959, he spent his young adulthood in the Northern Plains, performing with and writing for territory bands booked out of Omaha, Nebraska. He was the brother of Clare Fischer.
The Best of Ray Charles is a compilation album released in 1970 on the Atlantic Jazz label, featuring previously released instrumental (non-vocal) tracks recorded by Ray Charles between November 1956 and November 1958.
Duke Ellington at the Alhambra is a live album by American pianist, composer and bandleader Duke Ellington recorded in 1958 at the Alhambra Theater, Paris and released on the Pablo label in 2002.
Norman Gary Foster is an American musician who plays saxophone, clarinet, and flute. He is considered a crossover artist, performing jazz, pop, and classical music. He has been prominent in the film, television, and music industries for five decades, having performed on over 500 movie scores and with over 200 orchestras.
Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions, 1989: For Warne Marsh is an album by American composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton recorded in 1989 and released on the hatART label. A second edition released in 2012 deletes the tracks "How Deep Is the Ocean?" and "Time on My Hands".
A Portrait of Duke Ellington is an album featuring trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and orchestra performing compositions associated with Duke Ellington, recorded in 1960 and released on the Verve label. All of the orchestral arrangements were provided by then Hi-Lo's accompanist – and sometimes arranger – Clare Fischer, hired on the basis of a previously recorded but unreleased album with strings, arranged by Fischer for erstwhile University of Michigan classmate Donald Byrd. Byrd played the tape for Gillespie; Gillespie liked what he heard. Unfortunately for Fischer, especially in light of the critical accolades given the eventual fruit of his, and Gillespie's, labor, Fischer's name was nowhere to be found on the finished LP; widespread awareness of his participation would have to await the CD reissue almost 2½ decades later.
"Pensativa" is a bossa nova jazz standard by American pianist/composer/arranger Clare Fischer, first recorded in 1962 by a quintet under the joint leadership of Fischer and saxophonist Bud Shank, and released that year as part of an album entitled Bossa Nova Jazz Samba, comprising music in this style, as per its title, all of it arranged by Fischer, and, with the exception of Erroll Garner's "Misty", composed by him as well. In retrospect, this would prove to be just the first of countless forays by Fischer into various areas of Latin music. This particular song was one of the first, and almost certainly the most famous, of all the foreign-born - i.e. non-Brazilian - bossa novas. Its form, though extended (64 mm.), is standard A-A-B-A, with each section consisting of 16 measures instead of eight.
Alone Together is a studio album by American composer/arranger/pianist Clare Fischer, recorded in October 1975 and released in 1977 on the German label, MPS, and in the US by Discovery Records in 1980. Its 1997 reissue on CD accompanied a volume created by pianist, composer and educator Bill Dobbins, containing transcriptions of four of Alone Together 's tracks and five from Fischer's 1995 solo piano CD, Just Me, and described by saxophonist and longtime Fischer colleague Gary Foster as "among the very best materials published in the field of jazz pedagogy." Of the 1975 recording, Dobbins wrote: "If I had to make a list of the ten most important solo jazz piano recordings of all time, this recording would definitely be on the list."
2+2 is an eponymous album of a vocal quartet called 2+2 with music by the Latin jazz ensemble known as Salsa Picante that was led by the American keyboardist/composer-arranger Clare Fischer. It was recorded in September 1980 and released in February 1981 by Pausa Records, and in Germany on the MPS label, as Foreign Exchange – The First Album. Tracks 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 would be reissued on CD in 1999, and as a digital download in 2012, as Latin Patterns, a compilation of remastered highlights from four of Fischer's MPS LPs from this period.
Introspectivo is a studio album by American composer/arranger/pianist Clare Fischer, recorded in December 2004 and released in October 2005 on the Mexican label, M&L Music. Composed largely of previously unrecorded original compositions unearthed by his son Brent, this would be the 76-year-old Fischer's fifth and final strictly solo piano recording.
Extension is the third album by composer/arranger/keyboardist Clare Fischer, and his first for big band, recorded and released in 1963 on the Pacific Jazz label, reissued on CD in 2002 as America the Beautiful, and, under its original name, in 2012.
Crosscurrents is an album by jazz pianist Lennie Tristano. The sides were recorded in 1949 and the album released by Capitol in 1972. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.
This is the discography for American jazz musician Clare Fischer.
Ne Plus Ultra, is an album by saxophonist Warne Marsh recorded in 1969 and originally released on the Revelation label in 1970 before being rereleased on CD the Swiss HatOLOGY label in 2006 with a bonus track.
Report of the 1st Annual Symposium on Relaxed Improvisation, is an album by saxophonists Warne Marsh and Gary Foster with pianist Clare Fischer recorded in 1972 and released on the Revelation label.
Warne Marsh Quintet: Jazz Exchange Vol. 1, is a live album by saxophonist Warne Marsh's Quintet featuring Lee Konitz and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen which was recorded at the Jazzhus Montmartre in late 1975 and released on the Dutch Storyville label.
Manhattan Blues is an album by saxophonist Ricky Ford.