''Mixed Quintet'' is an album by American jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins recorded in 1979 for the Italian

Black Saint Black Saint and Soul Note are two affiliated Italian independent record labels. Since their conception in the 1970s, they have released albums from a variety of influential jazz musicians, particularly in the genre of free jazz. History Black S ...

label.Black Saint discography
accessed June 28, 2011 Regarding the album's title, Jenkins stated: "I called it mixed... because the quintet contains brass, reeds and strings, a mixture of instruments. I wanted to emphasize that this is different than the regular jazz quintet of a rhythm section and two front men." Concerning the music, he commented that it "isn't dependent on changes, it's dependent on direction. Where it came from and where it's going. Some people would call that open-ended, but it's not. We usually don't repeat the same heads, but we often work in a structure of theme / improvisation / theme / improvisation. So you know where you are coming from, and where you've got to go, and you've got a little time to make the ascent, the descent, or whatever is called for."

Reception

The

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

review by Dean McFarlane awarded the album 2½ stars stating "Exploring the jazz language and improvisation in such an oblique manner, the recording bears many similarities to the work of avant-garde jazz composer

Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chica ...

. An interesting recording yet by no means a representation of the ecstatic peaks Leroy Jenkins was capable of achieving as a free jazz soloist".McFarlane, D
Allmusic Review
accessed June 28, 2011 The authors of ''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' awarded the album 3½ stars, calling it "a foretaste of the classical configurations that were to come," and commented: "Some of the titles might sound restrainedly formal... but none... is a merely abstract etude or exercise, and all of them have Jenkins's trademark blend of intense expression and admirable control." They praised the wind players, calling them "masters in their own right," and singled out Ehrlich as "revelatory, a player as strongly rooted in classic jazz as he is in European art music."

Track listing

:''All compositions by Leroy Jenkins'' # "Shapes, Textures, Rhythms, Moods of Sound" - 19:17 # "Quintet No. 3" - 18:09 :*Recorded at CI Studios in New York City on March 22 & 23, 1979

Personnel

* Leroy Jenkins -

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

James Newton James W. Newton (born May 1, 1953) is an American jazz and classical flutist. Biography He was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. From his earliest years, James Newton grew up immersed in the sounds of African-American music, inclu ...

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

Marty Ehrlich Marty Ehrlich (born May 31, 1955) is a multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, clarinets, flutes) and is considered one of the leading figures in avant-garde jazz. Biography Though born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the portion of Ehrlich's youth spent in ...

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

* John Clark -

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

J. D. Parran J. D. Parran is an American multi-woodwind player, educator, and composer specializing in jazz and free improvisation. He plays the soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass saxophone, as well as the E-flat clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, ...

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

References

{{Authority control Black Saint/Soul Note albums Leroy Jenkins (jazz musician) albums 1979 albums