By George W. Harris
From Partner Site Jazz Weekly
Frank Vignola
Vignola Plays Gershwin
Mel Bay Records
Frank Vignola has put out yet another masterful collection of guitar music, this time featuring the FASCINATING RHYTHM section of Joe Ascione (drums) Tom Kennedy (bass) and Corey Christiansen (guitar). They play so well together, that you can’t help but wonder HOW LONG THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON. Vignola, with his Django Reinhardt-influenced technique is able to STRIKE UP THE BAND with some clever and adroit treatments of the Gershwin songbook. Music this well crafted, mixing well known melodies and logical solos, makes for perfect listening on a warm day in the SUMMERTIME. If someone gets you this disc for your birthday, you’ll immediately think that SOMEBODY LOVES ME, because your ears will be exposed to some terrific playing. Simply put itS’ WONDERFUL to be treated to music this tasteful and artistic.
Jan Shapiro
Back To Basics
Jan Shapiro.com
A newcomer on the block is singer Jan Shapiro, who has a voice like a husky Blossum Dearie. On this release, Shapiro sticks to standards, and her voice is well suited for the dreamy, under supported tunes. The swing era favorite, "Don't Be That Way," is presented with just John Baboian's gentle guitar as support, and stands out for it's elegant simplicity. Ditto for "Be Anything, Be Mine," which features Tim Ray's delicate piano work as the sole musical partner. She is also able to keep up the pace on the uptempo pieces, as she gallops through Gershwin's "S'Wonderful" without breaking into a sweat. The only caveat is the stingy amount of music, barely clocking in at half an hour. An hour's worth of dreamy ballads by this charming lady would have been just what the doctor ordered.
Tony Scott
A Jazz Life
Kind of Blue
Tony Scott’s recent passing makes this latest CD/DVD release all the more important. Recorded in Italy back in Feb 2006, it features one of the only two clarinetists who successfully embraced bebop, and survived (Buddy DeFranco being the other). This testament shows the difference between the two Italians: While DeFranco was more directed by technical facility and dexterity, Scott emphasized tone and mood. His sound on “A Jazz Life” has an Eastern Mediterranean feel to it, almost as if he’s switched from a regular Bb to the more Greek sounding C clarinet. Because of that, the mood on Ellington’s “Caravan” and “Summertime” have an exotically haunting aura to them. “Come Sunday” is almost liturgical in its presence. He is still able to swing, as on “Night in Tunisia,” but discreetly leaves the difficult break and solo for the adroit tenorist Ben Wendel. The band throughout the disc is sympathetic, supportive and swinging. His vocals on the “Low Down…Blues” and Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” are as authentic testimony to the title as you’d dare to find. Anything by this overlooked giant of the clarinet is worth searching for, and this one shows that Scott went out on a high note.
Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby
Legacy Recordings
Hey, the only difference between bluegrass and jazz is a little syncopation and a few flatted fifths, and the fact remains that most ECM recordings don't even have that minimum requirement, so just hush your comments for now. The fact remains, mandolin maestro Ricky Skaggs is one of the best improvisers around, and here is a great opportunity to what he is capable of putting out. There is some serious picking on this disc, and all of the tunes are chock full of great melodies and galloping rhythms. Being bluegrass, each of the tunes have their share of clever lyrics and stories. "Gulf Of Mexico" and"Across the Rocky Mountain" feature some down home blues wailing. "Mandolin Rain" and "Stubb" feature some jamming that will forget all about Bill Frisell, and maybe even Pat Metheny for a spell. The jewel of the disc, and a sure bet to be a winner at your next party, is the bluegrass-Appalachianed version of Rick James' "Super Freak." If that doesn't define "jazzing up a song," then you're missing out on a heck of a lot of fun in life. Definitely one of the joyful releases of the year.
Arturo Sandoval
Rumba Palace
Telarc Jazz
Well, it might not be as earth-shaking as when the headlines blared “Garbo Talks,” but it is still good news for jazz fans: “Sandoval Shows Restraint.” After a slew of recordings that came off like “Variations of a Loud Theme,” trumpeter Arturo Sandoval joins forces with a “little big band” and puts together a disc that is incessantly and attractively swinging like nothing he’s done before. Yes, he still displays his formidable chops, as on the aptly titled “El Huracan Del Caribe”, but kept within the confines of this well-arranged band, he feels more like a well-bridled stallion. Wistful, (yes, Sandoval is wistful) on the lyrical “Having Fun,” and playfully exuberant on “Nouveau Cha Cha,” he hasn’t sounded this enjoyable in years. The minor key ballad “Peaceful” is lush, romantic and seductive. This album fulfills the promise of his first few, and makes up for the disastrous past decade. Get this one, and renew your hope in mankind! And don’t forget your dancing shoes!
Poncho Sanchez
Raise Your Hand
Concord Records
At this point in his career, it is not a question of how good a disc Poncho Sanchez is going to put out (always great), but who the lucky guests (and therefore listeners) are. After featuring the Tower of Power horn section on last years release, Sanchez decided to dig even deeper into the roots and came up with three giants of the Stax record catalogue: vocalist Eddie Floyd, keyboardist Booker T. Jones, and guitarist Steve (Is there a great soul song he didn’t write?) Cropper. Together, they get together to do not only a funky version of the title tune, but a salsaed take of the classic “Knock on Wood” that is as logical as it is enjoyable. Tenorist Maceo Parker chimes in for some soulful blowing on a caliente version of “Shotgun” that blows last year’s Don Byron’s cover into hiding. Well toned vocals by Andy Montanez (“El Agua De Pelen”) and Jose “Pericao” Hernandez ("Donde Va Chichi?”) are supported by the regular exemplary band. Even the tunes without guests, like “Rosarito” feature unbelievably snappy horn work that punctuates the rhythm like a dart-throwing booth at the county fair. This guy is going strong after scores of records, and this one is up there on the list. See this LA treasure live, and appreciate one of our true landmarks.
Tad Robinson
A New Point Of View
Severn CD
If you are one to perform a blindfold test on your friends, this is the disc to use. The odds are on your side that the listener will bet that the singer is black, and is a holdover from the Stax days of Memphis. Get ready to collect on your bet, because Tad Robinson is a white baby boomer that puts out some of the most soul-drenched music you’ve ever heard this side of the Mississippi. This was even recorded in Maryland, for Pete’s sake!
Anyway, this guy can belt out the R&B like no one I’ve heard since Sam & Dave. Backed by a mean-as-a-junkyard-dog rhythms section, and a Memphis Horn sounding section, Robinson grooves through a set of original blues that will get you moaning for relief. “Long Way Home” and “Broken Hearted Man,” both written by John P. Bean, are as get-down gritty as you’d ever want without a body guard. Van Morrison’s “Up and Down World” is given an extra kick as well. This music will take you back to the days when the ceilings were low, the air was smokey, and the Chevy was hummin’. Good, rib-stickin’ stuff.
Enrico Rava Quintet
The Words and the Days
ECM
Returning to ECM after a 17 year absence, Enrico Rava’s working quintet delivers a warm and embracing 72 minutes of sublime and spacious improvisation. Rava’s Chet Bakerlike tone is perfectly mated with Gianluca Petrella’s yearning trombone work. Together, they form an alluring front line that weaves in and out like cars in the Piazza Nazionale. Songs like “Secrets” have enticing loping rhythm work by Andrea Pozza (piano), Rosario Bonaccorso (bass) and Roberto Gatto (drums); the brass work by Rava and Petrella is as brilliant as a Ravenna mosaic. “Todamor” and “Echoes Of Duke” feature dreamy interludes mixed with brief moments of wondrous surprise. “Traps” features some straight-ahead bebop, while Don Cherry’s “Art Deco” is a wonderful duet between the two brass instruments. Like in assembling a well made pizza Margherita, Rava lets the simple ingredients do all of the work in making this disc a musical feast.
Terje Lie
Traveler
TCAT records
Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover. Basking in the glow of a Pacific Coast sunset while cheerfully holding his tenor, Norwegian Terje Lie embodies the music on this smooth sounding CD: easy, funky and fun. Supported by some of the best LA musicians, Lie plays alto, tenor and soprano on a collection of catchy and easy grooving originals. He has an ingratiating sound on tenor, and uses it well on the funky “Pier Avenue” and heavy back-beated “Runnin’ Outta Time.” His soprano is clear and pristine, be it with the slapped bass support by Ernest Tibbs on “Warp 7” or with the dreamy and atmospheric keyboards supplied by David Garfield on “MDDIII.” The best and most alluring moment comes when Lie’s tenor joins with Garfield’s piano in a lovely and romantic duet during “My Love.” This Scandinavian has a lot of warmth to his playing. Smooth jazz fans will want this one.
The Fred Hersch Trio
Night & The Music
Palmetto Records
Fred Hersh is slowly turning into the Tony Bennett of pianists: never desiring to put out a hit record, he wants to have a hit catalogue! This trio release is another stellar addition to the Hersch canon featuring deep, reflective piano work by a master of moods. His tone, shadowy and almost medieval, is at it’s best on pensive pieces like his reading of “Change Partners” and the title track. With kinetic support from Nasheet Waits (drums) and Drew Gress (bass), he is able to veer between solemnity and agitation within the confines of Cole Porter’s “So In Love.” It says something about his dexterity and confidence that he is willing to tackle two Monk tunes ("Misterioso" and "Boo Boo’s Birthday") and not fall into the trap of cloying impersonation. His own compostions, like “Gravity’s Pull” are cohesive and filled with moments mixing grandeur and pensativity. This man is incapable of putting out nothing less than fascinating. Add this one to your Hersh library.
Jimmy Hall & The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Collective
Build Your Own Fire
Zoho Records
Here's some foot stomping, back to basics Stratocaster beer gut music to help clean out your carburetor. Vocalist/Harpist Jimmy Hall wails through a resounding set of shuffle and back breaking blues, performing compositions by the legendary-yet-overlooked Eddie Hinton. The MSRC is an air tight band that rocks and socks this music for all it's worth, making you feel like you're walking down Beale Street in downtown Memphis on a hot sultry summer evening. "Watchdog" and "Cover Me" show why Hall was the vocalist of choice for Wet Willie and Jeff Beck back in the 70s. Gritty and gutsy, his music will get you either up on the dance floor, or over to the waitress for another order of fried chicken and something to wash it down.
Joel Frahm
We Used to Dance
Anzic Records
Technique or Tone? Chops or Heart?This is the eternal question for sax players. It seems one has to be sacrificed for the other. While Joel Frahm certainly has the dexterity to handle upbeat songs on this enticing release, it’s his warm, enveloping tone on the ballads that will close the deal. He definitely handles himself well in the company of Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid and Victor Levy on the self-penned burners like “A Whole New You” and “The Dreamer.” His extrapolations on this torrid pieces are a beauty to behold. However, it is on the enchanting slower pieces like Kenny Barron’s “Song For Abdullah” or the standard “My Ideal” that Frahms tenor gives off a warm glow. Completely unhurried, each note just rolls in like a fog at Fisherman’s Wharf. His phrasing around Reid’s bass on the closing “We Used To Dance” is silky smooth, and his bouncing over the gentle bossa beat on “Jobimiola” is as tender as Claus Oberman’s strings. The older I get, the more I’m moved by the sound than the pyrotechnics. This disc will show you why.
Chick Corea
The Ultimate Adventure: Live In Barcelona
Concord DVD
Recorded live at the gorgeous Palau du la Musica at the Barcelona Jazz Festival back in 2005, “The Ultimat Adventure” features tone poems inspired by L. Ron Hubbard. Now, before you start telling me your favorite Tom Cruise jokes, give this DVD a chance, because this music, while overlooked when it came out on CD a year ago, deserves a second chance. The fact of the matter is that Corea in an acoustic setting has rarely sounded this good, and the music he and his top notch band puts out is sublimely sensational.
Featuring Jorge Pardo on woodwinds, Corea leads the band through exotic melodies like “North Africa” and “Queen Tedmur.” The intricate interplay between Corea’s acoustic /electric piano and Carlos Benavents percussive bass must be seen to be believed. The drum/ percussion work by Rubem Dantas, Hossam Ramzy and Tom Grechtlein lays down a hypnotic yet flexible groove that is also able to careem and bounce, as on “Moseb the Executioner” and “Kalimba” The music the entire evening is sophisticated, warm and enticing. Throw in a couple of flamenco dancers, and you’ve got an evening fit for El Rey. Corea still has the touch. Like the best of the best, he speaks his own language, and plays it well enough for all of us to listen. Check this one out.
Contemporary America
Another Center
Adventure Music
This latest release by Adventure Music is a little off the beaten path. Featuring 10 musicians from 7 different South American countries, the music represents a Whitman’s sampler of Latin folk and jazz. Many of the songs, particularly the one’s with the haunting vocals of Colombian Lucia Pulido, are strictly from the folk genre, featuring some indigenous and ingenious drumming and guitar work by Peruvian Luis Solar Narciso and Venezuelan Aquiles Baez. Other songs like the Chilean “Tonada for My Little Girl” have an irresistible jazzy lilt to them. “Juca’s Valley” features a tango beat with Siba’s rich Brasilian voice that will draw you to the dance floor with your partner. If only South American politicians could get together like these musicians, the world would be a better, and safer, place.
Avishai Cohen
As Is…Live At The Blue Note
CD and DVD
RAZDAZ Records
This is a musician I’ve never seen perform in concert, but after listening to this disc, that is going to have to change. Bassist Avishai Cohen’s band features music with complex but accessible melodies, intriguing changes in tempo and mood, along with some spectacular soloing by the likes of Jimmy Greene (sax) and Diego Urcola (Trumpet). Except for the Middle Eastern contexted “Caravan,” all of the songs are composed by Cohen, and feature a fascinating mix of Blues and Bedouin. “Smash” features some exotic and wild soloing on Greene’s soprano, but Sam Barsh’s keyboards and Cohen’s electric bass steer it around like a Yemenite festival. The hard driving and hypnotic “Etude” has the front line of Greene and Urcola stampeding through an intoxicating Sephardic rhythm that explodes in ecstasy towards the end, almost in relief. Cohen’s bass work, be it electric or acoustic, as on the (literally) blistering “Feediop” is astonishing in technique, yet with a warm glow, like the sun bouncing off the sand in the Negev desert. This is music that is sophisticated, inspiring and a great direction for jazz, even if it is read from right to left!
Bobby Broom
Song and Dance
Origin Records
Known primarily as Sonny Rollins’ sideman, guitarist Bobby Broom has put out a few discs on his own, and this latest one might be his best one yet. Spaciously accompanied by Dennis Carrol (bass) and Kobie Watkins (drums), Broom grooves through a set of cleverly selected tunes, and makes them swing and sway. Clever arrangements of The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “The Little Rascals Theme” make these pieces seem like logical jazz standards. Anytime you ask yourself “Why hasn’t anyone done this song before?” you know this guy is on to something. Ditto for a well-crafted reading of “Wichita Lineman,” which features marvelous interplay between Broom and Watkins. Broom’s tone, mixing bluesy with bop, flows effortlessly through the romantic pieces like “You and the Night and the Music.” Rewarding disc, and maybe Sonny will give him some more solo space next time he comes to town!
The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album
Fantasy
Coltrane and Hartman, Ella and Louis, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Steve Carlton and Tim McCarver; there are just some pairs that were meant to be together. Back in 1975, with only a few witnesses present to record the event, the two most romantic jazz artists got together to create some of the most sublime music ever put on tape. Evans, with his hand achingly swollen on the cover photo due to his personal demons, and Bennett, standing true to his calling as an artist and not a pop singer, glide through songs like “Young and Foolish” and “But Beautiful” that simply define what a ballad is all about. On songs like “Some Other Time,” Bennett alters his vocal dynamics to where you can’t help but get chills up your spine. Evans, on “My Foolish Heart,” and “When In Rome” is the perfect accompanist; his solos are well crafted, rich and heart wrenching. The bonus tracks carry enough variation to be justified. A desert island disc that may make you never want to return home.
Roni Ben-Hur
Keepin’ It Open
Motema Records
Guitarist Roni Ben-Hur has put out an attractive straight-ahead disc that shows a fascinating trend in jazz by mixing middle eastern harmonies to the jazz idium. Yes, he’s able to play it straight and in the pocket, as on the warmly delivered quartet reading of “Can’t We Be Friends.” He’s also able to bop with the best, as he veers through Elmo Hope’s “One Second Please” and his own “My Man Mr. Harris” with trumpeter Jeremy Pelt like it was 52nd street circa 1947. Pelt is crisp as celery on these pieces, and Ben-Hur drives the band like a charioteer at Circus Maximus. The exotica enters in on his Mediterranean reading of “Andaluza” and the Sephardic melody “Eshkolit.” On both of these, the tones blend together like a sunset in Cypress; warm, glowing with a gentle fresh breeze touching your face. This is lovely music; fresh and alive.
John Abercrombie
The Third Quartet
ECM
There really aren’t many “supergroups” around anymore, but this has to be one of those endangered species. Guitarist John Abercrombie’s third release with violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Marc Johnson, and drummer Joey Baron may be their best yet. Spacious, empathetic, and sublimely intricate, it delivers the best parts of group interplay and intellectual soloing. In Feldman, Abercrombie has found the perfect counterpart. On a song like “Number 9,” the abstract melody is harmonically explored by the two in completely different means: the violin spins around Abercrombie’s guitar like a spinning top. They take a tune like Bill Evans’s “Epilogue” and serve it with pathos and reflection. Open and spacious playing, as on Ornette Coleman’s “Round Trip,” turns to taking the melody meticulously apart, strand by strand, until all that is left is a memory of the song. Fascinating work by a true team.
Beatle Jazz
All You Need
LightYear Records
On paper, this, like the Chicago Cubs, looks like a winner. With two previous “Beatle” releases under his belt, why shouldn’t Brian Melvin and David Kikoski’s third one be as charming? Well, something is missing. Maybe it’s just a bit too cloying, and tries too hard to be cute. If you’re looking for a revisit to Beatle songs, with a jazz feel, try George Benson’s “The Other Side Of Abbey Road.” This disc deconstructs the familiar songs like the title track and “Lady Madonna.” How can you not swing Lady Madonna, for Pete (Best’s) Sake? Somehow, these guys manage. Tenorist Joe Lovano tries to salvage the music with an interesting reading of John Lennon’s “Look At Me,” but not even Richard Bona can put any excitement into a lifeless “The Night Before.” Don’t forget, the Beatles put out a few lemons (ever watch the movie Magical Mystery Tour?), so maybe better luck next time. Or maybe, try covering Gerry and the Pacemakers.
