A Generation Ago Today

Recorded in 1966 for Verve under producer Creed Taylor, A Generation Ago Today finds guitarist Kenny Burrell paying tribute to the swing era, reworking tunes closely associated with Benny Goodman and the Charlie Christian small-group sessions of the late 1930s. Burrell, one of the definitive post-bop jazz guitarists of the era known for his work with Blue Note and his own sideman dates for Miles Davis and John Coltrane, here reaches back to the music that shaped his own playing, framing Christian's pioneering electric-guitar vocabulary within a modern small-group setting. The presence of alto saxophonist Phil Woods lends a bop-inflected voice to swing-era staples like 'Stompin' at the Savoy' and 'Rose Room,' while the closing quartet track 'Wholly Cats' strips the band down for a leaner, more intimate look at the repertoire. The album sits in the middle of Burrell's prolific Verve period, when he moved fluidly between mainstream jazz dates and more commercial crossover sessions, and it stands as one of his more overtly historical, backward-glancing statements. Contemporary and later critical assessment has generally treated it as a solid, respectful genre exercise rather than a landmark, valued chiefly for Burrell's fluent, blues-rooted guitar lines and the quality of his supporting cast. It remains a minor but appealing entry in the guitarist's substantial 1960s discography, of most interest to collectors tracing his stylistic range across the decade.