One Notion Under a Groove: Jazz artists have used concept albums to pay tribute, spin stories and raise hell


In Michael Jarrett’s book Pressed for All Time, excerpted in this article, pioneering producer and invaluable commentator George Avakian explains how he in effect created the “concept album.” “My idea was to do packages, what they now call concept albums,” Avakian recalled. By “package” he meant a project in which the various tracks revolved around

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