Jaki Byard

Phantasies II is the second album by Jaki Byard with The Apollo Stompers, his big band, following Phantasies, recorded for Soul Note in September 1984. It was taped in New York in August 1988 and issued in 1991. The programme sets Byard's own pieces, two of them dedicated to B.B. King and Count Basie and a two-part Concerto Grosso, against standards from Manhattan to Send In The Clowns.

The sessions took place on August 23 and 24, 1988 at Sound Ideas Studios in New York City. Byard leads a band of four trumpets, four trombones and five saxophones, with guitar, bass and drums: among them the trumpeter Graham Haynes, the trombonist Steve Swell and the guitarist Peter Leitch, and two singers, Diane Byard and Vincent Lewis. BJC Blues is the King tribute, and Up Jumps One, at over seven minutes the longest track, is the one for Basie. The Concerto Grosso opens with Mellow Septet before There Are Many Worlds. Around them the record moves between New York Is A Lonely Town, June Night and Bright Moments, most of the ten tracks kept between two and five minutes.

This is the Soul Note CD 121175-2, the compact disc edition from 1991, with the ten tracks in the LP's order, the third titled 2-5-1, running about 42 minutes.