• Source: Lenox Avenue Breakdown

Lenox Avenue Breakdown is an album by jazz saxophonist Arthur Blythe. It was released by Columbia Records in 1979 and reissued by Koch Jazz in 1998. The album reached No. 35 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart in 1979.




Reception



Newsday called Lenox Avenue Breakdown "urbane, lucid jazz played with an animated spirit.' The Buffalo News deemed it a "blistering, eminently approachable set from a top level band."
The Penguin Guide to Jazz included Lenox Avenue Breakdown in its "Core Collection," and assigned its "crown" accolade to the album, along with a four-star rating (of a possible four stars). Penguin editors Richard Cook and Brian Morton called the album "one of the lost masterpieces of modern jazz," owing to its long period of unavailability before the 1998 CD release. Cook and Morton noted that "[Bob] Stewart's long tuba solo on the title-piece is one of the few genuinely important tuba statements in jazz, a nimble sermon that promises storms and sunshine."
Thom Jurek, writing for AllMusic, notes that "this group lays like a band that had been together for years, not the weeklong period it took them to rehearse and create one of Blythe's masterpieces. Over 20 years later, Lenox Avenue Breakdown still sounds new and different and ranks among the three finest albums in his catalog."




Track listing


All compositions by Arthur Blythe.

Original LP side one
"Down San Diego Way" – 7:44
"Lenox Avenue Breakdown" – 13:11
Original LP side two
"Slidin' Through" – 9:33
"Odessa" – 9:30




Personnel


Arthur Blythe – alto saxophone, mixing
James Newton – flute
Bob Stewart – tuba
James "Blood" Ulmer – guitar
Cecil McBee – bass
Jack DeJohnette – drums
Guillermo Franco – percussion
Bob Thiele – producer, mixing
Doug Epstein – engineer, mixing
Carl Beatty, Lincoln Clapp – assistant engineers
Vladimir Meller – mastering
Gene Greif – design
Mark Hess – illustration
Jim Houghton – photography
Stanley Crouch – liner notes
Donald Elfman – reissue producer
Nicole Cavalluzzo – reissue design




Release history






References

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• Lenox Avenue Breakdown
• Lenox Avenue
• James Blood Ulmer
• Bob Stewart (musician)
• Arthur Blythe
• 1979 in music
• James Newton
• 1970s in jazz
• 1978 in jazz
• Spirits in the Field