condition (record/cover): NM / EX (minimal foxing on back)

Inserts and obi included.

The second of the great Gil Evans collaborations and, for a lot of people, the best. Evans took Gershwin's score apart and rebuilt it for a nineteen-piece orchestra with almost no saxophones, so the whole thing sits in an unusual register: flutes, french horns, tuba, and Miles Davis alone in front of it, mostly on flugelhorn, mostly muted, playing the vocal lines with a restraint that borders on refusal. "Summertime" is a single riff repeated under the trumpet for three minutes and it is devastating. "Buzzard Song" and "Gone" are where the orchestra gets to move. Recorded in 1958, right between Milestones and Kind Of Blue.

Japanese CBS/Sony pressing, gatefold. Orchestral jazz that has never been equalled, let alone bettered.