The sand and the Moon

Gil Evans

Kenny Burrell with the Gil Evans Orchestra: “Moon And Sand”

Kenny Burrell is one of the most versatile jazz guitar players and this track, a collaboration with Canadian arranger Gil Evans, puts him on the spotlight and gives us a very similar emotion that of Metheny's "Travels", but with a Latin twist. It's almost impossible not to identify Evans' arrangement style once you listen to his orchestra; and here, his horn section proves a haunting background for Burrell's tasteful, passionate acoustic riffs. This is one of the most interesting guitar performances with a Latin combo that I have ever heard. The congas are drastically panned to the left and the small drum kit at the right. The orchestra is in the back, and Kenny's acoustic guitar (recorded unamplified and without any compression devices) is dramatically closer to the listener. Rudy Van Gelder's engineering skills give the listener the sensation of being in a nightclub. Reverberation is one of the "key signatures" of the analog Verve Jazz sound in the Sixties, as we can hear in this tune recorded by Van Gelder himself at his personal studio. From the 1964 album Guitar Forms.