I am a total sucker for the format of "famous musical group plus full orchestral backing". Symphony & Metallica? Oh yeah. Symphonic Music of Yes? Hell yes. The critics seem to hate these—Yes's attempt was only good for 1.5/5 stars from AllMusic—but I can't get enough of them. What's not to love? If you're a fan of the band, presumably you already like the original songs—how can you not like hearing them with drama, power, and fullness that only a full symphonic backing can bring?

Enter this week: celebrated saxman Paul Desmond is the headliner, but not as part of a quartet—he's joined by a full string section, a harp, and various other philharmonic goodies, as well as Jim Hall on guitar (who is consistently fantastic). One of jazz's coolest cats, backed by a classical cast? You can only imagine my anticipation.

So it is with great disappointment that I must confess to being somewhat lukewarm on Desmond Blue. It's certainly not bad—"Desmond Blue" (the eponymous track) has some super-spy swagger; I love both the harp at the start of "Autumn Leaves," as well as the Baroque-like intro to "My Funny Valentine"—but as a whole, the package fails to fundamentally excite me.

Perhaps I can pin this on a surfeit of strings? Behold my classical hot take: strings—violins in particular—are a tad overrated. Yes, of course they're beautiful, and yes, they can create an unparalleled lushness. But they can't match the sheer bombastic…ness of brass, nor the spitfire of notes churned out by a single piano, nor the tension and suspense of a roaring timpani. This album is billed as an orchestral accompaniment, and while that's technically true, I suppose I feel that this specific instrumentation doesn't evoke the raw power and "wow" factor I was hoping for.

Maybe you object that the problem here is Desmond himself, not the string section. After all, I have often professed a weakness for the uptempo; might I be simply rejecting Desmond's cool aesthetic altogether? I think not, and have some evidence on offer. Desmond happens to be one of the most prolific musicians in our corpus of albums: we've heard him both with the Dave Brubeck Quartet on Time Out and Jazz Goes to College, as well as alongside Gerry Mulligan on Two of a Mind. I'd rate all three of those albums as somewhere between "good" and "fantastic"—on each, Desmond impresses not with virtuosic flourishes (à la Charlie Parker), but rather with his utterly entrancing tone. That tone is solid as ever on Desmond Blue, but I find the addition of the strings often veers more towards "cheesy" than "sweeping."

Let me put it this way: I was hoping the combination of jazz plus orchestra on this album would be like peanut butter and chocolate—two individually beloved items that somehow combine to exceed the sum of their parts. Instead, Desmond Blue more like… potato chips and popcorn? Again, each great on its own, and put together they're still good—very good, even!—they're just not any better for the marriage.

Favourite track: Desmond Blue