Classical music and jazz are opposite and unreconcilable ends of the musical spectrum. Clearly, Logan Strosahl and his Team have never heard such words of warning, or, if they have, they foolishly ignored them and ventured forth. To the wise man’s surprise, however, they have returned victorious! Holding in his hands three tomes and chanting in a mighty parade, Logan handed one of the books to the old man and he looked at it with much confusion, assaulted by the unorthodox fanfare. Unfortunately, as is most common in the sixteenth century, the man was illiterate. There is no moral to this story, it’s only a hastily thrown together introduction to this review.

Current era. 08:48, a bedroom.

I’ve read the description, so I vaguely know what to expect. Polyphonic composition from the Late Middle Ages and the midst of the Renaissance used in a modern jazz context. “Yeah, that sounds cool.” I say to myself. I hit the play button and less than thirty seconds of preview suffices to sell me on this album. I download it for a proper listen, either later that day or the next.

Later that day or the next.

I press play in the software I use to listen to music and open a tab in my Internet browser to write a short and concise review on it. Since I haven’t listened to it entirely yet, I decide to write a convoluted introduction that will give me some time to soak up the music. “Classical music and jazz…”

To be entirely honest, I don’t feel like I ever could give justice to Book I of Arthur. It’s a complex interwoven web of classical tradition music and various forms of modern jazz. The Logan Strosahl Team, an eight-piece ensemble, tells the legend of Arthur in a new form: a modern jazz three-album suite. Book I serves as the introductory piece, with its thirty-five-minute duration, nine tracks, and narration, it’s a journey that’s difficult to grasp. However, it puts all the pieces of the puzzle before you – a mishap set of incongruous pieces –, and then shows you how it likes to arrange them, each action lending more beauty to the work of art under construction. It’s only the first act out of three, but it already is, unmistakably, an undeniable masterpiece. Get ready to be challenged. It’s not an easy listen, but one that is highly rewarding. Neoclassical jazz is cool.

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