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Jazz Artist of the Week
Oliver Nelson - "Blues and the Abstract Truth"

     The Blues and the Abstract Truth is an album by American composer and jazz saxophonist Oliver Nelson recorded in February 1961. It remains Nelson's most acclaimed album and features a lineup of notable musicians: Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Eric Dolphy (saxophone, flute), Bill Evans (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Roy Haynes (drums). Baritone saxophonist George Barrow does not take solos but remains a key feature in the subtle voicings of Nelson's arrangements.
      The album is an exploration of the mood and structure of the blues, though only some of the tracks are structured in the conventional 12-bar blues form. In this regard, it may be seen as a continuation of the trend towards greater harmonic simplicity and subtlety via reimagined versions of the blues that was instigated by Miles Davis's Kind of Blue in 1959 (Evans and Chambers played on both albums).
Among the pieces on the album, "Stolen Moments" is the best known: a sixteen-bar piece in an eight-six-two pattern, even though the solos are in a conventional 12-bar minor-key blues structure in C minor. "Hoe-Down" is built on a forty-four-bar structure (with thirty-two-bar solos based on rhythm changes). "Cascades" modifies the traditional 32-bar AABA form by using a 16-bar minor blues for the A section, stretching the form to a total of 56 bars. This album solidified Nelson's place as a great saxophonist and an even better composer. 

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Brainerd High School
North Campus
702 South 5th Street
Brainerd, MN 56401
218-454-6200
Brainerd High School 
South Campus
400 Quince Street
Brainerd, MN 56401
218-454-5200
Forestview Middle School
12149 Knollwood Drive
Baxter, MN 56245
218-454-6000
Brainerd Music Department | 218.454.5384 | 702 South 5th Street, Brainerd MN 56401