Concert Jazz - Sauter - Finegan

 

The Land Between

Concert Jazz

The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra

Ed Sauter & Bill Finegan

RCA Victor LPM-1051

1955

From the back cover: Pictures From Sauter-Finegan Land – An Orchestra such as ours, when it isn't actually playing spends the greater part of its time speeding from one end of the country to the other – from the austere roundness of green New England hills where each town boasts its dingy, streamside factory and white-spired clapboard church – to the brown, angular wilderness of the Southwest. In all, some 200,000 miles of Americana have rolled by, mostly by bus.

In spite of the transient nature of our existence, there are moments when we feel at one with where we are. In this piece we've tried to capture some of those feelings. The bustling, busy highways we know so well are represented by the main theme. Variations of this theme connect the different sections: A snowfall in Vermont – the steel towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio – a prairie schooner in the Southwest – a camp meeting in the Ozarks – a prairie night, the powerful Rockies the seem to rise out of the West like the waves of some ancient angry sea, and, being stopped in their course as if by a Giant Hand, hang poised, threatening to inundate the praises to the East.

Any Roberts reads the poetry that is so essential to this piece. You hear also the oboe and English horn of Ray Shiner and the voice of Anita Darian.

We sincerely hope the pleasure we experience creating the album will be shared by you – Ed Sauter and Bill Finegan

The Loop - Chicago has been called the crossroads of America – In this piece one might find an amalgamation of fragments of attitudes, from the great bands of the past - Novo - Basie - Ellington - Herman - Goodman - McKinley - Solos by Nick Travis - Gene Allen - Joe Venuto

Concerto In F - A paraphrase by Bill Finegan on the second movement of Gershwin's famous Concerto.

The Land Between - Nick Travis, deeply meditative, hanging suspended in a swirling dream world.

Madame X - From a painting by Roualt. The eternal mystery.

Where Or When - Our first love, Sally Sweetland. We hope you appreciate her as we do.

Sadie Thompson  - There's some life in this old girl. A bawdy blues with overtones of Tahiti and Rampart Street.

John Henry - Andy Roberts discourses on the tragedy of one man and his battle with "The Machine".

Solo For Joe - Joe Venuto in a nostalgia flight of fancy. And Wiedersehen.