1961 · Album
Plays Harold Arlen
Recorded June 1960 · Fantasy · Produced by not specified in source material
Two Sides of Tjader's Harold Arlen
Fischer's arrangements wake up the second half with orchestral color Tjader rarely explored elsewhere.
Side one settles into a comfortable groove—vibes floating over a small combo, the kind of mainstream jazz mainstream jazz listeners expect from Tjader. The tempo is easy, the mood consistent. It's pleasant enough, but after a few tracks the sameness becomes noticeable. Everything sits at the same temperature.
Then side two arrives with Clare Fischer's orchestral arrangements, and the album shifts shape entirely. Suddenly there are strings, section work, real orchestration happening around Tjader's vibes. The sentimentality deepens, but so does the texture. These five Fischer-arranged tracks stand apart from the rest of Tjader's catalog—this is not his usual setting, and the album credits the difference directly to Fischer's work. Billboard Magazine and other contemporaneous reviewers recognized what was actually happening here: this was two different albums pressed onto one, and the second half mattered more.
Recorded in June 1960 and released in February 1962, Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen sits somewhere in the middle of Tjader's career, neither his most celebrated work nor a forgotten corner. It's an interesting record specifically because of its split identity. If you want to hear Tjader exploring territory beyond his comfort zone, this is where to find it. That exploration lives on side two.
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