4 STARS ALL MUSIC GUIDE

A vinyl reissue, in our new audiophile Luminessence series, for Kenny Wheeler’s sensational ECM leader debut. Recorded in New York in 1975, and produced by Manfred Eicher, Gnu High brought Canadian trumpeter Wheeler to a new level of international acclaim, for both his impassioned playing and his profoundly lyrical writing.

Here Kenny is fronting an extraordinary quartet, with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, all masterful improvisers who had shaped their intuitive collective understanding as members of Miles Davis’s groups. “What you hear,” says Jack DeJohnette, “is the spontaneity of the moment.” Dave Holland notes that Gnu High “had this wonderful combination of the form and the shape and the harmony of Kenny’s tunes but then this really free way of interpreting them.” The album’s gatefold sleeve includes new liner notes by Kenny’s friend, colleague and biographer Nick Smart.

PERSONNEL:

• Kenny Wheeler - (flugelhorn)
• Keith Jarrett - (piano)
• Dave Holland - (double-bass)
• Jack DeJohnette - (drums)

Recorded June 1975, Generation Sound Studios, New York

TRACKS:

• SIDE A
• A1. Heyoke ........... 21:47

• SIDE B
• B1 'Smatter ........... 5:56
• B2 Gnu Suite ........... 12:47