Kenny Burrell - Guitar Forms (1973 Japan) LP

Though the jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell is associated mostly with Blue Note-based hard bop and soul-jazz (he had a hit with the funky "Chile con Carne"), he is also a musician of considerable artistry. Witness his landmark 1965 collaboration with Gil Evans, Guitar Forms, which rivals anything the arranger did with Miles Davis. Indeed, the track "Lotus Land" has a bolero form very reminiscent of Sketches of Spain. There is no stinting on the blues here, either, as evidenced on "Downstairs" and "Terrace Theme." But the highlights are the bossa nova version of Alec Wilder's "Moon and Sand," as well as a characteristically slow and luxurious treatment of Harold Arlen's "Last Night When We Were Young." Throughout, Burrell takes thoughtful, concise, and utterly musical solos, and even switches to acoustic classical guitar on "Prelude #2" and "Loie."