| Alabama Concerto | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | John Benson Brooks featuring Cannonball Adderley and Art Farmer |
| Border: | yes |
| Released: | 1958 |
| Recorded: | July 28 & 31 and August 25, 1958 Reeves Sound Studio, New York City |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 42:27 |
| Label: | Riverside RLP 12-276 |
| Chronology: | John Benson Brooks |
| Prev Title: | Folk Jazz USA |
| Prev Year: | 1956 |
| Next Title: | Avant Slant |
| Next Year: | 1968 |
Alabama Concerto is an album by composer John Benson Brooks featuring saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and trumpeter Art Farmer; it was released on the Riverside label in 1958.[1] For Brooks, it was "an outgrowth of an assignment he had [...] to transcribe for a book some folk recordings made in Alabama by Harold Courlander"; these contrasted with New Orleans jazz recordings, causing Brooks to consider an alternative influence on the history of jazz.
Critic John S. Wilson, in a contemporaneous review, observed of the composer: "Working from several rural folk themes, he develops his Concerto through ensembles, written solos and improvised solos played by a quartet".[2] Concluding in a negative vein, Wilson stated that the album "lacks movement and explicit development [...] the work becomes lost in monotony long before the two full LP sides have been completed." The Allmusic site awarded the album 3 stars with the review by Scott Yanow stating, "Although not essential, the music is thought-provoking, quite melodic, and looks backwards toward folk music of the 1800s while giving the pieces a 1950s jazz sensibility".[3]
All compositions by John Benson Brooks