Gary McFarland

Not just classmates at Berklee School of Music, Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo believed in, pursued, and created an intriguing synthesis of jazz and pop that drew upon the best characteristics of each. They brought rock standards into the jazz repertoire with ease (not that it was unheard of before), admired the Beatles and the Rolling Stones far earlier than was cool, and teamed to record several albums' worth of excellent material during the mid-'60s -- for a variety of labels, including Impulse!, Verve, and the Skye label they formed with Cal Tjader. Sketch for Summer on El Records is one of the best compilations ever produced on either of them, skipping lightly over their combined work (both together and separately) of the mid- to late '60s. Sketch for Summer begins with the highlights of Szabo's work of 1965-1967 (originally released on Gypsy '66, Spellbinder, Jazz Raga, and Sorcerer), then moves to recordings with McFarland as a leader (though the two appear together often here) on LPs released as The In Sound and Simpatico. Several McFarland rarities appear, such as both sides of a 7" with Antonio Carlos Jobim from 1964, another 7" from 1966, and his work for the soundtrack Eye of the Devil in 1966 and the concept album Scorpio and Other Signs from 1968. Given the lack of widely available editions of each of these original LPs (and considering the money needed to purchase them), Sketch for Summer is an embarrassment of riches from a pair of jazz musicians who earned much enmity from jazz fans and critics during their brief lifetimes, but produced a lot of joyous music nevertheless. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide