Woody Herman - Children Of Lima (2019)

This is an unusual album by Woody Herman's Young Thundering Herd. The big band joins with the Houston Symphony Orchestra to perform a pair of Alan Broadbent pieces: the 18-minute "Variations on a Scene" and the 5½-minute "Children of Lima." In general this "third-stream" effort is not all that interesting and finds the Herman band being weighed down by the strings. The flip side of the LP (not yet reissued on CD) finds the big band two months later playing Broadbent's "Far In" and three pop tunes ("Never Let Me Go," "Where Is the Love" and Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4"). Despite some good solos by Frank Tiberi on tenor and bassoon and tenorman Gregory Herbert (showcased on "Never Let Me Go") along with a couple of spots for Herman, this is definitely a lesser effort that has not dated well.