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Idle Moments

The centrepiece of Idle Moments is its title-track, as languidly lovely a quarter hour of jazz as one could hope for. The story goes that it was a happy accident, born of a misunderstanding. Having been talked through the piece by its composer (pianist Duke Pearson), Green played his first solo part for sixty-four bars rather than the thirty-two that Pearson had intended. It sounded so good that the rest of the musicians (including Pearson himself, saxophonist Joe Henderson, and Bobby Hutcherson on vibes) followed suit.

It left them with a track that was too long, in conjunction with the others they'd already recorded, to shoehorn on to a single LP. After some failed attempts to recapture the magic of that first take in truncated form, they decided to re-do the other pieces instead, arranging the rest of the album around 'Idle Moments'. Although the other tracks are also excellent, it was undoubtedly the right choice. Those who have the CD version of the album can also hear the original longer takes of two of them: 'Jean De Fleur' and 'Django'.

I thought I'd downloaded a version of this album years ago, but it seems not: perhaps I first listened to it via YouTube. In any case I only got around to ordering my good-as-new CD copy in March this year. I bought it, together with a copy of Charles Mingus' Blues and Roots (via ebay) for a combined price of only £6.61.

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