condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Inserts and obi included.

Nine musicians, three sessions between 1949 and 1950, and an entire school of jazz invented more or less by accident in Gil Evans' apartment on West 55th Street. Miles Davis fronted the nonet but the record is really a composers' project: Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis writing for french horn and tuba alongside the saxophones, aiming for the sound of the Claude Thornhill band at chamber scale. Lee Konitz plays alto with that famously bloodless beauty and Max Roach keeps the whole thing from floating away. Barely noticed at the time. Utterly determining afterwards.

Japanese Capitol pressing. Year zero for the entire West Coast movement, and still a genuinely lovely listen rather than just a historical marker.