Recorded way back in 1980, before the trickster saxophonist Keshavan Maslak took on the moniker Kenny Millions and went completely crazy as a free jazz blower, he was a relatively sane jazz musician with a penchant for all things Beat -- as in Generation. On this date with avant drum god Sunny Murray and New York bassist John Lindberg, Millions plays us his considerable rooting in bebop, modal, and post- and hard bop bluesology. The opener is Compulsive Lust, a blues in which Murray merely keeps a lush swing-based time in 4/4 and Lindberg vamps as Millions sings his ass off on the middle register of the horn. He's pulling out lounge and noir jazz clichés and turning them into soulful expressions of sax savvy. His tone is rich and full on the alto; his scalar knowledge is such that he could play Cherokee in all 12 keys; and the cat's arpeggios are in the pocket, tight and soaring. Besides the title, the first sense we get of Maslak's sense of humor is on the hard bopping Bukowski in Love, in which he and Murray trade eights and then Lindberg counters by changing the tempo and the key. No matter, Maslak isn't caught off guard for a moment, as he digs deeper into the blues books and starts riffing on G with skeins of notes turning into dark blue ribbons, all the while quoting Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, and Eric Dolphy in perfect time. This is a gorgeous record, made when no one was paying attention to what Leo Fegin was attempting to do (do they now?) by bringing modern creative jazz into the public eye. Few people have heard this record, but if they had, they'd want to own it. All it would take is a listen to the penultimate track, a sensitive, bleating love ballad played on bass clarinet called When You Look at Me, I Want to Vomit. 'Nuff said. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		Compulsive Lust
2		Lovely Friends
3		Loved by Millions
4		Di Da
5		Bukowski in Love
6		Romance in the Big City
7		When You Look at Me, I Want to Vomit
8		A Thrill a Minute

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