About this Artist

• Biography

Editorial Reviews

Foremost among the British big-band leaders, Vic Lewis enthusiastically embraced bop, cool jazz, and other forms of post-swing jazz. Inspired by Stan Kenton and Kenton's saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, Lewis billed his orchestra with the less than humble tagline "The Music of Tomorrow by the Band of Today." The second of these two albums, 1955's live set Progressive Jazz, is a small milestone of U.K. jazz recordings, popularizing charts by Kenton and Mulligan alongside a number of similarly cool and cerebral band originals like Lewis' Afro-Cuban-tinged "Natal." But it's the first one, 1954's Mulligan's Music, that's possibly more interesting for the modern listener. Recorded shortly after Mulligan's release from jail on drug charges, this set consists of Mulligan's own arrangements of his own original tunes as realized by Lewis and his sympathetic orchestra. It's no Birth of the Cool, but a similarly hip vibe permeates these big-band settings of previously small-combo tunes like 1952's "Nights at the Turntable." Mulligan was mostly working with small groups during this period, and it's interesting to hear more fully realized arrangements of these familiar tunes. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide All Music Guide

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