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Title: White Bread Jazz
Review: These "with strings" albums were designed to appeal to the larger white audience and, sadly, they generally worked. They gave the buyer the feeling that they were really "with it" by buying an album by a true Jazz star. But it was and remains an illusion. Hefti's schamltzy arrangements eviscerate the Jazz elements from the music, rendering it an anomalous, dessicated mush. The two stars I give it are for Brownie who shines through even against the overwhelming obstacle of these arrangements. It is a crime that great jazzmen like Brownie (and Bird) had to resort to this in order to reach a wider audience and make some decent money.
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