Finally a CD reissue of what were undoubtedly the first truly original Dutch jazz works -- the legendary Boy Edgar's Big Band's Now's the Time from 1965 and Finch's Eye from 1966. These two albums gave Netherlands jazz the boost it so sorely needed to emanate from underneath the American shadow and forge a jazz identity of its own. With his influences ranging from Duke Ellington and Count Basie to Stan Kenton and the classical musician of Jean Sibelius, composer, arranger, and medical doctor Boy Edgar created a band comprised of all the elements of the Dutch jazz world in the early '60s. That included equal parts older players who were still reading swing charts from the '30s, bebop connoisseurs from the '40s, hard bop and cool jazzers from the '50s, and a host of young lions who had heard the large group "free jazz" works of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. Now's the Time showcases them all together playing tasteful, innovative charts with lush harmonies and killer soprano solos from Piet Nordjik, a young player who has never gotten his due as a stylist on the instrument though he truly deserves to be widely recognized for his bluesed-out wailing found here. He is the only player featured as a soloist on all six of the former album's selections -- and in a saxophone section of seven horns, no less. Now's the Time has stood the test of it well, sounding fresh, even, and wonderfully arranged 36 years after its first appearance. There is a weakness in the trumpet section, as the fire of the rest of the band leaves them in the shadows most of the time, but compared to everything else that's here -- swing, hard bop, free jazz, Ellington, modal music, and so on -- it's easy to forgive. Standout cuts are Parker's title track, Coltrane's Blues Minor, with its velvety smooth and dark textures, and a positively wild reading of Blue Monk, with horns blaring all over the piano lines and loving every minute of it. Finally there is Theo Loevendie's Return, a true composition of the new Dutch jazz with its outlandish counterpoint and stacked harmonies all strung together in a mass of elegant yet emotional sonic pathos. Finch's Eye fares less well for its time because it was simply trying too hard to be of of its time, as well as taking into consideration many of the changes in pop and jazz. Still, there is the debut appearance of Willem Breuker and his melding of his composition 28 with Edgar's 21 for 2128, making for his first appearance as a soloist in any context, and the stock-in-trademark humor was there right at the beginning. Listen to him bend those fifths during his solo and you'll swear you are listening to a Raymond Scott arrangement. Finally, Loevendie's title track, the first formally "new" or "free" Dutch jazz, showcases Breuker blowing in the breaks as the band swirls around him in an oddly dissonant tone poem. In all, a revelatory reissue, giving listeners a picture of how the Dutch gained their strong, individual identity as a jazz region; these two LPs were no doubt the inspiration for many Netherlands musicians to come. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		Now's the Time
2		Solitude
3		Competitive Challenge
4		Blues Minor
5		Blue Monk
6		Return
7		Black Sea
8		Plain Blues
9		2128
10		I Remember Vienna
11		Finch Eye

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