Paul Desmond - Bridge Over Troubled Water

2008 reissue

Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water was the hottest album in the land in 1970, and Paul Simon's tunes from that and their earlier albums unexpectedly find a congenial advocate in Paul Desmond.

Against the odds as determined by bopsters, Desmond finds something beautiful, wistful, and/or sly to say in each of these ten tunes, backed by Herbie Hancock's Rhodes electric piano and a set of ravishing, occasionally overstated (as in "America") orchestrations by Don Sebesky. "The 59th Street Bridge Song" is given a jaunty, carefree rendition, adapting quite well to a jazz treatment (after all, Desmond's old teammate in the Brubeck quartet Joe Morello played drums on S&G's original record) and Desmond even does some cascading overdubs on his solo part.

"Cecilia" is a fast samba, Desmond cleverly works his old "Sacre Blues" into the solo on "El Condor Pasa," and the title track has a breathtakingly pretty fadeout. Hancock's solos often reflect where he was personally at in 1970, with ideas transferred from his progressive electric Sextet. This is a Creed Taylor production in all but name; the sound, track editing, and production values are right in line with the A&M CTI line, but Sebesky is listed as producer, Taylor having recently severed his ties with A&M to form his own label.

AllMusic Review by Richard S. Ginell